F 

IZ.Z. 

:3 


UC-NRLF 


::iviii|iqi|iil"'siiil 


iiiiiliili 
1111 

>i:S  •■■■:!  "'hjiii:!!  'J 

llllllpi 


jiip 

iiliililililf 
iiiiiiiliiii 

iiiiiiiiiiiji 

!|!!;ll|ii||j!iiiijl!!s!iilii5 


llllijlii 

iiiiil 


iliiiiiill 

iiiiii 
1111111 

illli 

iiiiiiiljlii 

^^ 

iiiiii 
flliiiili 

llillljl 

Illli 

:|iiiPliiii|| 


III 
111 


iiiiilli 


i-jiii; 


iiil 


iiiii: 


liiiiiil 


'    ,   '     i      ''      5     O    )    J 


*8 

©.  3.  (tamiibi'U.  ^.  3. 


Nftti  fork 
®lyp  America  frras 

1911 


P«EU(V 


Copyright,  191 1,  by 
THE  AMERICA  PRESS,  NEW  YORK 


Imprimatur. 


JOHN  M.  FARLEY, 

Archbishop  of  New  York, 


774233 


PREFACE 


In  connection  with  the  movement  inaugurated  by  the 
New  York  State  Historical  Society  to  erect  a  memorial  in 
honor  of  the  discoverer  of  Lake  George,  Father  Isaac  Jogues, 
it  has  been  deemed  advisable  to  reprint  the  brief  notice  of 
his  life  which  has  already  appeared  as  one  of  the  monographs 
of  the  "  Pioneer  Priests  of  North  America."  It  is  here  pre- 
sented with  some  emendations  and  additions.  Very  probably, 
also,  it  will  be  of  service  to  the  pilgrims  who,  during  the 
summer,  journey  to  the  scene  of  his  death  at  Auriesville  on 
the  Mohawk. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Lake  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament    -----     Frontispiece 

Orleans      ----.----._  Facing  page       7 

Isaac  Jogues,  S.  J.     ------    -  "          "       21 

The  Hill  of  Prayer     -------  "          "       27 

Auriesville,  N.  Y. — Bridge  in  the  Ravine  "           "        29 

New  York  as  Seen  by  Jogues     -     -     -    -  "           "32 

Peter  Stuyvesant  --------  "           "       ^ 

Statue  of  Jogues,  at  Dunwoodie    -    -    -  "          "46 


Auriesville,  N.   Y. — Ravine   Procession 
of   the   Blessed  Sacrament  -    -    - 


53 


CHAPTER  I 
On  Lake  Huron 

The  first  missionary  who  entered  New  York  arrived 
drenched  in  his  own  blood.  He  had  traversed  Lake  Cham- 
plain  and  Lake  George,  and  was  going  to  be  burned  to  death 
at  Ossernenon,  on  the  Mohawk,  the  place  now  known  as 
Auriesville,  forty  miles  west  of  Albany.  He  was  Isaac 
Jogues,  then  about  thirty-six  years  of  age. 

With  Protestant  historians  Jogues  is  an  especial  favor- 
ite ;  Parkman,  among  others,  being  very  emphatic  in  his 
praise.  Catholics,  of  course,  admire  him,  and  it  is  said  that 
Gilmary  Shea's  manuscript  of  the  Life  of  Jogues  was  stained 
with  the  author's  tears,  Jogues'  gentle,  almost  shrinking, 
but  nevertheless  heroic  nature  is  in  striking  contrast  with 
the  bold,  aggressive  and  martial  character  of  his  friend  and 
associate,  de  Brebeuf.  Perhaps  that  is  why  he  appeals  so 
strongly  to  ordinary  people. 

He  was  born  at  Orleans,  France,  January  lo,  1607.  The 
cathedral  of  the  city  is  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Cross,  which 
may  explain  Jogues'  repeated  description  of  himself  as  a 
"  citizen  of  the  Holy  Cross."  He  was  baptized  in  the 
church  of  St.  Hilary,  and  received  the  curious  name  of 
Isaac,  for  it  was  then  the  fashion  among  the  French  Cath- 
olics to  imitate  their  Protestant  neighbors  in  adopting 
names  from  the  Old  Testament.  Thus  Isaac,  Samuel, 
Joshua,  David,  and  even  Shadrach,  appear  frequently  on 
the  registers  of  those  days.  There  is  such  a  Calvinistic  ring 
in  it  all  that  one  Canadian  historian  will  have  it  that  Cham- 
plain  was  not  originally  a  Catholic  because  his  name  was 
Samuel.     But  the  inference  is  not  correct. 

The  family  of  Jogues  still  resides  at  Orleans.  They  were 
known  as  Jogues  de  Guedreville  well  on  into  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  that  designation  is  no  longer  used,  and  they  are 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

calie'd  de  Dreuzy.  It  will  be  of  interest  to  Americans  to 
kiiow  that  in  the  course  of  time  one  of  the  family  became  an 
intimate  friend  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  was  then  in 
France  as  Ambassador  of  the  Colonies.  It  was  probably  at 
Franklin's  suggestion  that  he  attempted  an  establishment 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  The  scheme  failed,  however,  and 
he  returned  home.  Had  he  directed  his  energies  to  the 
banks  of  the  Mohawk,  which  his  distinguished  relative  has 
made  so  famous,  perhaps  his  efforts  would  have  been 
blessed  with  success.  The  present  Vicomtesse  de  Dreuzy 
is  a  German-American,  born  in  New  York.  Her  father  also 
was  a  native  of  the  city,  but  her  mother  was  from  Bogota. 
The  maiden  name  of  the  Vicomtesse  is  de  Liittgen. 

Another  coincidence  is  that  their  house  faces  the  church 
of  Notre  Dame  de  Recouvrance.  This  was  the  title  given 
by  Champlain  to  the  church  erected  in  Quebec  after  "  recov- 
ering "  Canada.  Under  the  sanctuary  of  Notre  Dame  de 
Recouvrance,  in  Orleans,  repose  the  remains  of  the  family 
of  Jogues  de  Guedreville,  some  of  whom  were  eminent  in 
their  native  city. 

The  courtesy  of  the  distinguished  Curator  of  the  Musee 
Historique  d'Orleans  puts  at  our  disposal  the  family  crest, 
whose  peculiar  quarterings  it  will  be  hard  for  our  democ- 
racy to  interpret.  It  consists  of  two  stags'  heads  regardants 
avec  cols  arraches,  with  a  silver  lake  below,  on  which  a  water 
fowl  is  floating,  while  in  the  center  rises  a  rock,  from  which 
gushes  a  fountain.  The  Jogues  de  Guedreville  were  of 
noble  blood. 

Jogues'  first  schooling  was  at  Rouen,  but  at  seventeen 
he  entered  the  Jesuit  Novitiate  at  Paris.  Shea  says  it  was 
at  Rouen,  and  Rouvier,  in  his  Apotre  Esclave,  agrees  with 
him,  while  Rochemonteix  pronounces  for  Paris.  Perhaps 
he  was  in  both.  They  all  concur,  however,  in  giving  him 
the  famous  Louis  Lalemant,  the  author  of  the  well  known 
Doctrine  Spirituelle,  as  novice  master.  This  Lalemant  was 
not,  however,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  the  brother  of  the 

8 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

two  great  Canadian  missionaries,  Charles  and  Jerome,  and 
consequently  he  was  not  the  uncle  of  Gabriel,  who  died  at 
the  stake,  side  by  side  with  de  Brebeuf. 

Of  course.  Father  Louis  Lalemant  was  intensely  in- 
terested in  the  American  missions,  and  doubtless  that  was 
the  reason  why,  when  the  young  novice  was  asked  what  he 
was  seeking  by  entering  the  Society,  and  replied,  ''  Ethiopia 
and  martyrdom,"  Lalemant  said,  "  Not  so,  my  child.  You 
will  die  in  Canada."  It  turned  out  to  be  true,  but  there  is 
no  need  of  regarding  the  utterance  as  a  prophecy. 

When  his  studies  and  teaching  were  over,  he  embarked 
for  Quebec,  and  after  two  stormy  months  on  the  ocean  he 
set  foot  on  the  shores  of  the  New  World,  October  2,  1636. 
He  was  then  twenty-nine  years  of  age.  On  the  vessel  with 
him  was  Champlain's  successor,  the  great  Montmagny, 
whom  the  Indians  called  Onontio — a  translation  of  the 
name  Montmagny,  or  High  Mountain.  This  title  was  given 
to  all  subsequent  rulers  of  Canada. 

Fortunately  we  have  the  first  letter  that  Jogues  sent 
home.  It  was  to  his  "  Honored  Mother,"  as  he  called  her, 
in  the  dignified  fashion  of  those  days,  and  was  written  im- 
mediately after  his  first  Mass  in  America.  He  had  been 
looking  at  the  vast  river,  the  like  of  which  he  had  never 
seen  before.  He  had  already  met  the  painted  red  men,  at 
whose  hands  he  might  expect  death  at  any  moment.  Never- 
theless he  wrote :  "  Honored  Mother :  I  do  not  know  what 
it  is  to  enter  heaven,  but  this  I  know — that  it  is  difficult  to 
experience  'in  this  world  a  joy  more  excessive  and  more 
overflowing  than  I  felt  on  setting  foot  in  the  New  World, 
and  celebrating  my  first  Mass  on  the  day  of  the  Visitation. 
I  felt  as  if  it  were  Christmas  Day  for  me,  and  that  I  was 
to  be  born  again  to  a  new  life  and  a  life  in  God." 

A  glimpse  of  the  future  was  afforded  him  two  or  three 
weeks  later,  when  he  was  standing  on  the  bank  of  the  St. 
Lawrence,  near  the  stockade  which  in  course  of  time  has 
grown  into  the  city  of  Three  Rivers.    Down  the  stream  was 

9 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

coming  a  flotilla  of  canoes,  in  the  first  of  which  stood  Father 
Daniel,  barefooted  and  bareheaded,  his  cassock  in  rags,  and 
his  breviary  suspended  by  a  string  around  his  neck,  and, 
though  haggard  and  extenuated  by  hunger  and  fatigue, 
plying  his  paddle  as  vigorously  as  any  redskin.  Thirteen 
years  after  that  Daniel  fell,  pierced  with  arrows,  and  his 
body  was  flung  into  the  blazing  ruins  of  his  little  chapel. 
But  the  light-hearted  hero  cared  little  what  fate  was  in  store 
for  him,  as  he  sprang  ashore,  on  that  October  morning,  to 
embrace  the  new  soldier  who  was  going  to  the  battlefield 
to  fight  for  God. 

Daniel  was  to  remain  in  Quebec  for  a  short  time,  but 
the  Hurons  would  not  return  to  their  home  without  a  priest. 
So  Jogues  took  his  place  in  the  canoe  and  set  out  for  Lake 
Huron.  A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  what  that  means, 
but  a  detailed  description  by  Bressani,  who  made  the  same 
journey  ten  years  later,  will  help  us  to  better  appreciate  its 
hardships. 

"  The  distance,"  he  says,  *'  is  more  than  900  miles  over 
dangerous  rivers  and  great  lakes,  whose  storms  are  like 
those  of  the  ocean,  especially  on  one,  which  is  1200  miles  in 
circumference.  The  greatest  danger,  however,  is  on  the 
rivers.  I  say  '  rivers  '  because  there  are  several,  and  we 
can  only  follow  the  St.  Lawrence  for  400  miles.  After  that 
we  have  to  make  our  way  over  other  lakes  and  streams 
which  we  reach  by  skirting  rapids  and  precipices  until  we 
finally  arrive  at  the  great  Lake  Huron,  which  is  known  as 
the  '  Fresh  Water  Sea.' 

"  On  our  journey  we  meet  with  about  sixty  cascades, 
some  of  them  falling  from  a  great  height.  To  get  around 
them  we  have  to  carry  our  boats  and  provisions  and  lug- 
gage, or  at  times  drag  our  canoes  through  the  rapids  for 
four,  eight,  or  ten  miles;  a  labor  which  is  attended  with 
great  peril,  for  often  the  water  is  up  to  our  waists  or  necks, 
and  is  very  cold,  and  if  we  are  caught  in  the  current  we  are 
in  danger  of  being  swept  away  and  lost.  But  it  is  com- 
monly to  be  preferred  to  the  portage,  which  means  making 
our  way  in  our  bare  feet  through  dense  forests,  or  through 
pools  and  marshes,  where  we  have  to  wade,  helping  our- 
selves perhaps  by  a  fallen  tree  which  may  serve  as  a  bridge, 

10 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

but  which  is  often  as  dangerous  and  disagreeable  as  the 
water  and  mud.  Swarms  of  insects  follow  us,  and  there  is 
also  constant  danger  of  dying  from  starvation.  For  on 
these  journeys  the  provisions,  which  are  nothing  but  corn, 
have  to  serve  for  going  and  returning,  and  to  lighten  the 
load  a  portion  is  often  concealed  in  the  woods,  to  be  used 
on  the  return  trip,  but  these  stores  are  frequently  discov- 
ered by  other  Indians,  or  dug  up  by  the  bears,  or  rotted  by 
the  rain  and  dampness.  In  any  of  these  events  we  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  fast,  and  paddle  away  until  by  hunt- 
ing or  fishing  we  obtain  some  relief.  If  the  journey  is 
made  late  in  the  year  there  is  a  likelihood  of  finding  the 
rivers  and  lakes  frozen,  and  then  there  is  danger  of  dying 
of  hunger  and  cold ;  or,  if  we  escape  that,  we  may  have  to 
spend  six  months  in  the  woods,  hunting  to  live  rather  than 
journeying  to  reach  the  desired  country.  Arriving  there, 
other  difficulties  await  us." 

He  says  nothing  of  the  lurking  Iroquois  all  along  the 
route,  from  whom  a  horrible  death  could  be  expected  at 
each  step  of  the  journey. 

Such  was  Jogues'  first  experience  of  missionary  life. 
Living  on  Indian  corn  and  w^ater,  sleeping  on  rocks  and 
in  the  woods,  paddling  day  after  day  against  a  rapid  cur- 
rent, dragging  heavy  burdens  over  the  long  portages,  a 
part  of  the  time  with  a  sick  boy  on  his  shoulders,  were  not 
things  he  had  been  brought  up  to,  but  he  survived  them 
all,  and  with  a  light  heart  staggered  through  the  triple 
stockade  of  the  Indian  town  of  Ihonitiria,  and  fell  into  the 
arms  of  de  Brebeuf  and  his  companions,  whose  delight  was 
the  greater  as  his  coming  was  unexpected. 

We  have  no  means  of  identifying  this  lad  whom  Father 
Jogues  carried  through  the  forests,  and  whose  life  he  prob- 
ably saved.  He  may  have  been  an  Indian,  but  it  is  just 
possible  that  he  was  no  other  than  young  Jean  Amiot,  who 
grew  up  to  be  a  great  favorite  of  the  Hurons,  and  a  famous 
fighter  against  their  hereditary  foes,  the  Iroquois.  The  rea- 
son of  this  supposition  is  that  shortly  after  Jogues'  arrival 
in  Huronia  we  find  on  the  list  of  servants  of  the  mission  the 

II 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

name  "  Jean  Amiot,  boy."  Of  his  family  we  know  nothing, 
but  it  is  a  characteristic  feature  of  those  heroic  days  that  a 
mere  boy  should  be  willing  to  go  so  far  into  the  wilderness 
with  the  missionaries,  where  his  life  was  in  such  constant 
danger. 

Quite  unexpectedly  Amiot  appears  again  in  connection 
with  Jogues  eleven  years  later.  On  September  17th,  1647, 
viz.,  eleven  months  after  Jogues'  death,  he  came  down  from 
Three  Rivers  to  Quebec  with  an  Iroquois  warrior,  whom  he 
had  captured  in  battle.  It  turned  out  that  his  prisoner  was 
the  very  man  who  had  murdered  the  missionary.  Other  In- 
dians recognized  him,  and  he  admitted  the  crime.  The  culprit 
was  put  to  death,  but  before  being  led  to  execution  was 
baptized,  and  was  given  the  name  of  his  victim,  Isaac.  The 
record  of  this  baptism  is  signed  by  Druillettes,  who  had 
been  sent  down  to  New  England  at  the  same  time  that 
Jogues  started  on  the  fatal  journey  to  the  Mohawk. 

After  the  execution  of  the  Iroquois,  Amiot  returned  to 
Three  Rivers,  but  that  same  year  he  and  his  friend 
Francois  Marguerie  were  drowned  in  the  St.  Lawrence. 
The  entire  colony  lamented  the  untimely  death  of  these  two 
young  men,  whose  stainless  reputations  had  won  for  them 
the  affection  and  esteem  of  white  men  and  Indians  alike. 

But  to  return  to  Jogues.  His  cheerful  appearance  on 
arriving  at  the  Huron  Mission  was  only  assumed.  In  a 
few  days  he  was  down  with  a  fever,  which  the  others  caught 
from  him,  and  the  bark  cabin  became  a  hospital ;  a  wretched 
one  indeed,  for  they  had  only  mats  for  beds,  and  a  decoction 
of  roots  for  their  whole  supply  of  drugs.  Moreover,  the  cold 
of  November  was  upon  them  and  there  was  nothing  to  eat. 
Le  Mercier  writes :  "  We  had  a  hen  which  gave  us  an  egg, 
but  not  every  day.  We  used  to  wafch  for  the  egg  and 
then  debate  as  to  who  should  refuse  it."  It  was  a  poor  out- 
look for  Father  Jogues,  and  his  condition  soon  became 
alarming.  He  was  bleeding  profusely  from  the  nostrils  and 
the  blood  could  not  be  staunched.    It  may  go  against  mod- 

12 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

ern  practice,  but  the  Relations  tell  us  "  hence  we  decided  to 
bleed  him.  The  great  question  was  where  to  find  a  sur- 
geon. We  were  all  so  skilful  in  this  trade  that  the  patient  did 
not  kno7.v  who  should  open  the  vein  for  him,  and  every  one  of  us 
zvas  waiting  for  the  benediction  of  the  Father  Superior  to  take 
the  lance  and  do  the  work."  Ordinary  people  would  like  to 
have  better  medical  assurance  than  a  benediction.  So 
Father  Jogues,  whose  whole  surgical  experience  consisted 
in  "  having  bled  a  savage  very  successfully  on  the  way  up," 
took  the  lance  and  did  it  himself,  furnishing  thus  a  fair 
sample  of  the  cool  courage  he  had  at  command.  The 
Relations  very  naively  say  in  referring  to  the  "  savage  who 
was  bled  successfully "  that  "  what  was  wanting  in  skill 
was  supplied  by  charity." 

When  the  missionaries  recovered,  a  pestilence  broke  out 
among  the  people,  and  hundreds  of  them  died.  The  medi- 
cine men  tried  to  conjure  it  away,  and  when  the  wild  and 
indecent  orgies  which  they  ordered  were  ineffectual,  they 
blamed  the  pestilence  and  their  own  failure  on  the  mis- 
sionaries and  clamored  for  their  death. 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that,  fully  expecting  to  be  mur- 
dered, the  little  band  of  priests  assembled  at  Ossossane. 
De  Brebeuf  had  come  over  from  Ihonitiria,  and  he  boldly 
walked  into  the  wigwam  where  the  sachems  were  deliberat- 
ing about  when  and  how  to  kill  him  and  his  associates.  He 
remonstrated,  and  pleaded,  and  explained,  but  he  was 
listened  to  in  gloomy  silence,  until  at  last,  amid  muttered 
threats  of  vengeance,  the  little  group  of  condemned  men 
withdrew  to  Ragueneau's  hut,  where,  under  the  light  of  a 
torch,  they  wrote  a  letter  of  farewell  to  their  friends  at 
Quebec.  They  were  about  to  be  put  to  death,  they  said, 
and  their  only  sorrow  was  that  they  had  not  been  able  to 
suffer  more  for  the  P'aith.  Jogues  was  not  actually  present 
at  this  meeting,  for  he  was  unable  to  leave  his  little  mission 
of  Tenaustaye,  which  was  then  the  most  unfriendly  of  all 
the  Huron  villages,  and  where,  as  well  as  at  Ossossane,  he 

13 


ISAAC    JOGUES 

might  be  tomahawked  at  any  moment.  But  his  name  was 
appended  to  the  document,  for  he  expected  to  be  put  to 
death  Hke  the  rest.  The  letter  was  given  to  a  faithful  Indian, 
who  brought  it  to  its  destination.  For  one  reason  or  an- 
other the  savages  did  not  carry  out  their  threat,  but  every 
hour  was  filled  with  terror.  "  The  missionaries,"  says 
Parkman,  "  were  like  men  who  trod  on  the  lava-crust  of  a 
volcano  palpitating  with  the  throes  of  a  coming  eruption, 
while  the  molten  death  beneath  their  feet  gleamed  white  hot 
from  a  thousand  crevices."  Finally  the  plague  ceased,  but 
out  of  fickleness  or  hatred  for  the  place,  Ihonitiria  was 
abandoned  by  the  Indians,  and  the  Fathers  established  the 
mission  of  Ste.  Marie,  which  became  the  center  of  all  their 
work  for  many  years,  and  the  one  for  which  they  always 
manifested  the  greatest  attachment.  Parkman  regrets  that 
the  Jesuits  wrote  so  little  about  it. 

If  you  take  the  train  at  Toronto  and  travel  north  through 
the  forests,  which  are  still  dense  enough  to  attract  the 
hunter,  but  which  the  lumbermen  are  rapidly  clearing,  you 
arrive  at  Lake  Simcoe,  from  the  northern  end  of  which 
flows  the  little  River  Wye  into  Georgian  Bay,  which  is  the 
eastern  portion  of  Lake  Huron.  On  that  river  was  built 
the  new  mission.  It  was  fortified,  because  it  was  intended 
to  be  a  place  of  refuge  for  fugitive  Indians,  a  storehouse 
for  provisions,  and  a  home  where  the  missionaries  could 
come  from  the  forests  and  lakes  to  restore  their  courage  by 
meditation  and  prayer. 

A  branch  of  the  Grand  Trunk  which  runs  north  to  Mid- 
land and  Penetanguishene  brings  you  within  a  few  hundred 
feet  of  that  once  famous  establishment.  You  can  still  trace 
the  lines  of  the  walls,  which  are  laid  in  hydraulic  cement, 
and  are  said  to  be  a  puzzle  to  engineers,  for  there  is  no 
cement  in  the  neighborhood,  and  it  could  not  have  been 
brought  a  thousand  miles  from  Quebec.  At  the  four  corners 
are  bastions,  and  around  it  is  a  moat  now  filled  with  rubbish, 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

which  when  in  use  afforded  easy  access  for  boats  from  the 
river  and  lake. 

Father  Martin,  the  famous  Rector  of  St.  Mary's  College 
of  Montreal,  who  has  done  more  than  anyone  else  to  revive 
the  memory  of  those  old  heroes  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  who  inspired  Gilmary  Shea  to  carry  on  the  work,  visited 
Ste.  Marie  in  1859.  He  was  accredited  by  the  Canadian 
Government  to  make  the  investigations. 

''  Without  difificulty/'  he  says,  "  we  found  the  ruins  of 
Fort  Ste.  Marie.  Its  walls,  in  good  masonry,  rose  a  metre 
above  the  ground.  It  was  in  the  form  of  a  long  parallelo- 
gram, with  bastions  at  the  angles,  and  in  spite  of  some 
peculiarities,  of  which  at  the  present  day  it  is  difficult  to 
understand  the  reason,  one  recognizes  in  the  construction 
an  acquaintance  with  military  engineering  carried  out  with 
great  care.  The  curtains  on  the  west  and  north  are  com- 
plete, but  there  are  no  traces  of  them  on  the  south  and  east. 
Probably  solid  palisades  which  were  subsequently  destroyed 
by  fire  were  placed  there.  There  was  no  attack  to  be  feared 
on  that  qiiarter;  besides,  on  those  two  sides  there  is  a  deep 
ditch  which  protects  the  enclosure.  The  south  one  extends  to 
the  river  and  so  formed  a  shelter  for  the  canoes.  It  widens 
out  into  basins  at  three  places.  Along  this  ditch  on  the 
south  is  a  vast  field,  protected  on  the  side  facing  the  country 
by  a  redan,  whose  earth  parapet  is  still  distinguishable.  In 
that  field  were  the  wigwams  of  the  visiting  Indians,  the 
hospital,  and  guest-house.  At  the  side  of  the  southeast 
bastion  was  a  square  construction  with  a  very  thick  wall, 
doubtless  intended  as  the  basis  of  a  future  observation 
tower.  We  opened  a  trench  on  the  inside  angle  of  the  north- 
east bastion,  and  at  the  depth  of  60  c.  found  portions  of  a 
burned  plank,  large  nails,  pieces  of  copper  and  the  bones 
of  beavers.  The  interior  constructions  were  all  in  wood, 
which  explains  how  nothing  is  left  except  a  chimney  in 
ruins." 

Of  course  the  missionaries  were  not  cooped  up  in  the 
fort.  The  soil  around  was  carefully  cultivated  and  produced 
an  abundant  harvest.  There  was  such  an  amount  of  maize 
in  1649  that  the  Superior  thought  they  had  a  supply  that 
would  last  for  three  years.    They  kept  fowl  and  swine  and 

15 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

cattle,  and  the  wonder  is  how  the  animals  were  transported 
to  that  distant  place.  It  was  a  god-send  for  the  poor,  starv- 
ing Indians,  and  at  times  three  or  four  thousand  of  them 
were  within  the  walls  of  Ste.  Marie.  No  doubt,  while  being 
fed  and  cared  for,  they  wondered  at  the  unexplainable 
charity  that  prompted  it  all.  But  it  was  not  only  in  famine 
times  that  they  were  harbored.  On  every  alternate  Satur- 
day they  came  in  crowds  from  the  farthest  villages,  and 
during  Saturday,  Sunday  and  a  part  of  Monday  they  were 
bounteously  feasted,  and  of  course  instructed  and  made  to 
feel  the  influence  of  the  solemn  religious  rites  performed 
in  the  great  church,  which,  for  the  Indians,  was  a  marvel  of 
beauty,  but,  as  Ragueneau  deprecatingly  wrote,  "  very  poor 
for  the  rest  of  us."  Nothing  is  now  left  of  all  this  but  the 
stones  of  the  foundation,  which  for  historical,  if  not  for 
religious,  motives  ought  to  be  made  a  public  monument. 

To  this  central  mission  the  Fathers  all  came  for  their 
conferences  and  annual  retreats,  and  possibly  it  might  be  of 
interest  to  quote  the  well-known  passage  of  Parkman,  even 
if  it  is  colored  somewhat  by  his  poetry  and  lack  of  spiritual 
appreciation.    It  is  found  in  his  Jesuits  in  North  America. 

"  Hither,"  he  says,  "  while  the  Fathers  are  gathered  from 
their  scattered  stations  at  one  of  their  periodical  meetings, 
let  us,  too,  repair  and  join  them.  We  enter  at  the  eastern 
gate  of  the  fortification,  midway  in  the  wall  between  its 
northern  and  southern  bastions,  and  pass  to  the  hall,  where 
at  a  rude  table,  spread  with  ruder  fare,  all  the  household  are 
assembled — laborers,  domestics,  soldiers,  priests. 

*'  It  was  a  scene  that  might  recall  a  remote  half  feudal, 
half  patriarchal  age,  when  under  the  smoky  rafters  of  his 
antique  hall  some  warlike  thane  sat,  with  kinsmen  and  de- 
pendents, ranged  down  the  long  board,  each  in  his  degree. 
Here  doubtless  Ragueneau,  the  Father  Superior,  held  the 
place  of  honor;  and  for  chieftains,  scarred  with  Danish  battle- 
axes,  was  seen  a  band  of  thoughtful  men  clad  in  threadbare 
garb  of  black,  their  brows  swarthy  from  exposure,  yet 
marked  with  the  lines  of  intellect  and  a  fixed  enthusiasm  of 
purpose.     Here  was  Bressani,  scarred  with  firebrand  and 

i6 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

knife ;  Chabanel,  once  a  professor  of  rhetoric  in  France,  now 
a  missionary  bound  by  a  self-imposed  vow  to  a  life  from 
which  his  nature  recoiled ;  the  fanatical  Chaumonot,  whose 
character  savored  of  his  peasant  birth — for  the  grossest 
fungus  of  superstition  that  ever  grew  under  the  shadow  of 
Rome  was  not  too  much  for  his  omnivorous  credulity,  and 
mysteries  and  miracles  were  his  daily  food ;  yet,  such  as  his 
faith  was,  he  was  ready  to  die  for  it.  Garnier,  beardless  like 
a  woman,  was  of  a  far  finer  nature.  His  religion  was  of  the 
affections  and  the  sentiments;  and  his  imagination,  warmed 
with  the  ardor  of  his  faith,  shaped  the  ideal  form  of  his  wor- 
ship into  visible  realities.  Brebeuf  sat  conspicuous  among 
his  brethren,  portly  and  tall,  his  short  moustache  and  beard 
grizzled — for  he  was  fifty-six  years  old.  If  he  seemed  im- 
passive it  was  because  one  overmastering  principle  had 
merged  and  absorbed  all  the  impulses  of  his  nature  and  all 
the  faculties  of  his  mind.  The  enthusiasm  which  with  many 
is  fitful  was  with  him  the  current  of  his  life — solemn  and 
deep  as  the  tide  of  destiny.  The  Divine  Trinity,  the  Virgin, 
the  Saints,  Heaven  and  Hell,  Angels  and  Fiends — to  him 
these  alone  were  real,  all  else  were  naught.  Gabriel  Lale- 
mant,  nephew  of  Jerome  Lalemant,  Superior  at  Quebec,  was 
Brebeuf's  colleague  at  the  mission  of  St.  Ignace.  His  slen- 
der frame  and  delicate  features  gave  him  an  appearance  of 
youth,  though  he  had  reached  middle  life;  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  Garnier,  the  fervor  of  his  mind  sustained  him 
through  exertions  of  which  he  seemed  physically  incapable. 
"  Of  the  rest  of  that  company  little  has  come  down  to  us 
but  the  bare  record  of  their  missionary  toils ;  and  we  may 
ask  in  vain  what  youthful  enthusiasm,  what  broken  hope 
or  faded  dream,  turned  the  current  of  their  Hves,  and  sent 
them  from  the  heart  of  civilization  to  the  savage  outpost  of 
the  world.  No  element  was  wanting  in  them  for  the 
achievement  of  such  a  success  as  thac  to  which  they  aspired 
— neither  the  transcendental  zeal,  nor  a  matchless  discipline, 
nor  a  practical  sagacity  very  seldom  surpassed  in  the  pur- 
suits where  men  strive  for  wealth  and  place,  and  if  they 
were  destined  to  disappointment,  it  was  the  result  of  external 
causes,  against  which  no  power  of  theirs  could  have  insured 
them." 

Barring  the  malignant  characterization  of  Chaumonot, 
which  is  like  a  shot  from  an  ambush,  as  well  as  the  nonsense 

17 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

about  disappointed  hopes  and  faded  dreams,  the  picture  is 
vivid  enough  to  be  quoted.  We  regret  that  the  figure  of 
Jogues  does  not  appear  in  that  "  half-feudal,  half-patriarchal 
group  " ;  especially  as  it  was  his  "  practical  sagacity  very 
seldom  surpassed  in  the  pursuits  where  men  strive  for 
wealth  and  place  "  that  prompted  his  superiors  to  appoint 
him  to  superintend  the  construction  of  those  very  works 
which  Parkman  so  much  admires. 

That  he  was  the  chief  builder  of  Ste.  Marie  dispels  the 
common  impression  about  his  being  little  else  than  a  re- 
ligious enthusiast  eagerly  seeking  death.  On  the  contrary, 
he  was  the  most  practical  of  all  the  missionaries.  What- 
ever he  undertook  he  scrutinized  carefully  in  all  its  bear- 
ings ;  its  difficulties  were  weighed ;  its  dangers  estimated ; 
but  "  once  the  word  '  go  '  was  given,"  wrote  his  Superior, 
"  then  neither  man  nor  devil  could  stop  him." 

His  first  apostolic  work  away  from  Ste.  Marie  was  among 
the  Petuns  or  Tobacco  nation ;  a  name  which  indicates  the 
occupation  of  that  tribe.  With  him  was  Garnier,  who  some 
years  later  was  to  die  under  the  blow  of  a  tomahawk  when, 
after  being  riddled  with  bullets,  he  was  crawling  on  the 
ground  to  absolve  a  dying  Huron.  Garnier  and  Jogues  had 
been  consecrated  priests  together  at  the  same  altar  in 
France  a  few  years  before. 

Holy  as  they  were,  their  efforts  failed.  Abandoned  by 
their  guides,  they  had  to  make  their  beds  in  the  snow ;  were 
driven  out  of  the  wigwams  in  the  dead  of  night ;  and  were 
followed  by  excited  Indians  with  threats  and  imprecations 
from  village  to  village.  They  did  nothing  at  all  but  baptize 
one  poor  old  squaw.  But  possibly  her  prayers  were  power- 
ful with  God,  for  the  next  year  Garnier  returned  and  estab- 
lished a  prosperous  mission  among  his  hard-hearted  Petuns. 

Meantime  a  number  of  Ojibways  or  Chippewas  had 
come  down  from  Lake  Superior  to  take  part  in  the  great 
decennial  feast  of  the  dead  with  their  friends  the  Hurons. 
Astonished  at  what  they  saw,  they  asked  for  a  mission  in 

i8 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

their  own  country,  and  Jogues  and  Raymbault  were 
assigned  to  the  work.  They  stepped  into  their  little  bark 
canoe  on  September  17,  1641,  and  paddled  for  weeks  along 
the  eastern  shore  of  Georgian  Bay,  and  then  across  the 
upper  reaches  of  Lake  Huron  and  finally  arrived  after  many 
dangers  and  hardships  at  the  place  which  is  now  a  great 
center  of  commerce,  Sault  Ste.  Marie.  The  missionaries 
gave  it  that  name. 

You  say  to  the  dwellers  in  those  regions :  "  That  must 
have  been  a  journey  of  two  or  three  hundred  miles,"  and 
they  smile  at  your  simplicity  and  answer :  **  more  like  a 
thousand  because  of  the  way  a  canoe  has  to  travel.  A 
shell  like  that  can  never  make  a  cut  across  the  open." 

They  reached  their  destination,  and  it  is  a  distinction 
worth  noting  that  they  were  the  first  white  men  to  stand 
on  the  shores  of  Lake  Superior;  for  though  Nicolet  had 
been  in  those  parts  before  them,  yet  it  is  more  than  likely 
that  he  went  down  through  the  Straits  of  Mackinac  and 
explored  Lake  Mjchigan,  while  they  kept  on  to  the  north 
and  west.  It  "{^(^ommonly  asserted,  indeed,  that  Nicolet 
really  visited  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  but  the  claim  does  not 
appear  to  be  sustained  by  documentary  evidence. 

At  the  Sault  they  met  two  thousand  Indians,  whom 
Jogues  addressed  in  their  own  language,  assuring  them  that 
after  reporting  to  his  Superior  he  w^ould  establish  a  mission 
there.  "  Then,"  he  added,  "  after  instructing  you  we  shall 
go  thither,"  and  he  erected  a  cross  which  faced  the  country 
of  the  Sioux,  who  were  settled  about  the  headwaters  of  the 
Mississippi.  -  That  was  thirty  years  before  Marquette 
started  from  Mackinac  to  find  the  great  river.  Jogues 
would  most  likely  have  attempted  it  had  he  been  spared. 
In  fact,  as  we  see  in  Le  Jeune's  Relation  of  1636,  all  the 
missionaries  were  eager  to  find  the  river.  But  Jogues  never 
returned  to  Lake  Superior.  As  will  appear  later,  he  was 
captured  by  the  enemy  and  killed  on  the  far-ofif  Mohawk. 
But  it  is  more  than  likely  that  by  securing  the  good-will 

19 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

of  the  savages  of  those  parts  he  made  it  possible  for  the 
great  Marquette  to  be  a  missionary  without  being  a  martyr. 
It  is  very  pleasant  to  meet  in  Picturesque  America  a  descrip- 
tion of  this  scene. 

"Two  hundred  and  thirty-two  years  ago,"  says  the 
writer,  "  the  first  white  man  stood  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Superior.  Before  him  was  assembled  a  crowd  of  Indians — 
two  thousand  Ojibways  and  other  Algonquins — listening 
with  curiosity  to  the  strange  tidings  he  brought,  and  in 
some  instances  allowing  the  mystic  drops  to  be  poured  on 
their  foreheads;  for,  like  all  the  first  explorers  of  the  lake 
country,  this  man  was  a  missionary.  Only  religious  zeal 
could  brave  the  wilderness  and  its  savages,  cold  and  hunger, 
torture  and  death,  for  no  hope  of  earthly  reward,  for  no 
gold  mines,  for  no  fountain  of  youth,  but  simply  for  the 
salvation  of  souls.  And  whatever  posterity  may  think  of 
the  utility  of  their  work,  it  must  at  least  admire  the  courage 
and  devotion  of  these  Fathers,  who,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, laid  down  their  lives  for  the  cause.  What  can  a  man 
do  more  ?  Five  years  later  came  the  turn  of  this  first  white 
man  of  Lake  Superior,  murdered  by  the  Indians  in  the 
forests  near  the  Mohawk  River." 


20 


ISAAC  JOGUES,  S.  J. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Capture 

The  two  explorers  paddled  rapidly  back  to  Georgian 
Bay  to  announce  the  good  news  and  to  prepare  for  the  great 
enterprise,  but  Raymbault  was  in  a  dying  condition  from 
hunger  and  exposure,  and  someone  had  to  go  with  him  to 
Quebec,  where  possibly  his  life  might  be  saved.  Inci- 
dentally also  the  mission  had  to  lay  in  supplies,  for  nothing 
had  come  from  below  for  three  years.  Who  would  attempt 
the  perilous  journey?  Jogues  maintained  that  he  could  be 
most  easily  spared,  though  no  one  shared  that  view  with 
him,  and  he  succeeded  in  persuading  his  superiors  to  let 
him  make  the  attempt.  A  thousand  miles  intervened 
between  the  River  Wye  and  Quebec,  and  at  every  moment 
there  was  a  menace  of  death  from  dangerous  cataracts  or 
wild  beasts  or  prowling  Iroquois.  But  they  reached  Quebec 
in  safety,  though  with  much  suffering,  and  there  Raymbault 
soon  breathed  his  last.  He  was  the  first  Jesuit  to  die  in 
Canada.  He  was  buried  by  the  side  of  Champlain ;  but  the 
exact  spot  where  the  priest  and  the  soldier  were  laid  the 
people  of  Quebec  cannot  tell  you  to-day. 

Jogues  was  successful  in  obtaining  supplies,  and  he  set 
out  on  his  return  journey  with  his  canoes  well  packed  with 
provisions.  With  him  were  about  forty  persons;  one  a 
famous  Huron  chief,  Teondechoren,  who  was  thought  to 
bear  a  charmed  life,  so  often  had  he  escaped  injury  in  battle ; 
another  a  former  sorcerer,  Ahitsasteari,  who  had  become  a 
Christian,  and  was  noAv  as  pious  as  he  had  formerly  been 
wicked.  Rene  Goupil  and  William  Couture,  two  donnes  or 
laymen  who  for  religious  motives  had  devoted  themselves 
to  the  help  of  the  missionaries,  also  made  part  of  the  con- 
voy; and  finally  Theresa,  an  Indian  girl,  who  had  been 
educated  by  the  Ursulines  of  Quebec,  and  who  was  now 

21 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

unwillingly  leaving  her  beloved  nuns  and  returning  to  her 
country  to  assist  by  her  piety  and  knowledge  in  spreading 
the  faith.  She  is  to  disappear  in  the  forests,  only  to  be 
found  again  just  before  Jogues'  martyrdom. 

Knowing  the  dangers  that  confronted  them,  the  Gov- 
ernor offered  the  convoy  a  detachment  of  soldiers,  but  the 
Indians,  who  never  appreciate  danger  until  the  enemy 
appears,  indignantly  refused  all  help.  They  were  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves.  But  they  were  only  a  day's  journey 
beyond  Three  Rivers,  which  they  had  left  on  August  i, 
1642,  when  a  suspicious  trail  revealed  itself.  The  great 
chief  said  haughtily :  "  If  it  is  the  trail  of  friends  there  is 
no  fear ;  if  it  is  an  enemy's  we  are  strong  enough  to  con- 
quer ";  but  a  war-whoop  and  a  volley  of  musketry  soon  told 
another  story.  They  were  ambushed  by  almost  twice  their 
number.  There  were  seventy  Mohawks  in  all,  and  signifi- 
cantly enough  they  were  led  by  a  Huron  apostate.  Regard- 
less of  the  danger  and  thinking  only  of  baptizing  one  of  the 
Indians  whom  he  had  been  instructing,  Jogues  addressed 
himself  to  that  task  while  the  battle  was  raging,  and  when 
he  rose  from  where  he  had  been  kneeling  he  found  the 
greater  number  of  his  Hurons  in  flight,  and  those  who  had 
held  their  ground  already  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  What 
should  he  do?  He  w^as  as  fleet  of  foot  as  any  Indian  and 
could  have  escaped  if  he  wished.  But  before  his  eyes  he 
saw  his  beloved  Rene  Goupil  and  some  of  his  Huron  Chris- 
tians bound  hand  and  foot,  and  the  thought  of  deserting 
them  never  entered  his  mind.  To  the  amazement  of  the 
Indians  he  strode  out  from  his  concealment  and  stood  beside 
them.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the  one  who  made  the  most 
splendid  fight  in  this  encounter  was  Goupil.  When  nearly 
every  one  had  fled  he  remained  almost  alone  facing  the 
whole  host  of  enemies  and  fighting  fiercely.  The  fact  is 
worth  remembering,  for  there  is  such  stress  laid  on  his  piety 
and  gentleness  that  we  are  prone  to  fancy  him  as  timid  and  - 
shi*inking  and  somewhat  feminine  in  his  disposition,  and 

22 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

not  the  heroic  fighter  that  this  occasion  showed  him  to  be. 
Jogues  describes  him  as  "  a  man  of  remarkable  intrepidity/* 

The  deep  affection  with  which  the  priest  was  regarded 
by  the  rest  of  the  company  revealed  itself  as  the  battle  was 
ending.  Couture  was  well  out  of  reach  when  he  discovered 
that  the  Father  was  not  with  him.  He  deliberately  turned 
back,  though  he  had  to  fight  his  way  through  a  crowd  of 
Iroquois,  who  almost  cut  him  to  pieces  in  his  effort  to  reach 
the  side  of  Jogues.  The  ''  invulnerable  "  Huron  chief,  who 
had  taken  to  flight,  came  back  of  his  own  accord  also, 
though  he  knew  it  meant  torture  and  a  horrible  death. 

It  was  while  embracing  and  consoling  Couture,  who  was 
brought  in  covered  with  blood,  that  Father  Jogues  was 
felled  to  the  earth  by  the  sticks  and  clubs  of  the  Iroquois. 
He  awoke  to  consciousness  only  to  find  two  savages  gnaw- 
ing his  fingers  off  with  their  teeth.  As  the  battle  was  now 
over,  the  captives  were  flung  into  canoes,  and  the  party 
hurried  up  the  stream  to  where  the  Sorel  or  Richelieu  flows 
into  the  St.  Lawrence,  but  not  before  they  had  cut  a  record 
of  their  exploit  on  the  trees  of  the  forest.  The  exact  spot 
where  the  battle  was  fought  has  been  forgotten. 

Nothing  more  disastrous  could  have  happened  to  the 
missions  than  this  capture  of  Jogues.  "  Had  we  received 
those  supplies,"  wrote  Father  Le  Mercier,  "we  could  have 
held  out  indefinitely."  But  of  course  Jogues  was  not  re- 
sponsible. He  knew  too  well  the  needs  of  his  brethren  and 
the  advantage  of  having  soldiers  as  protectors  on  that  peril- 
ous journey,  and  he  had  seen  too  many  an  example  of  the 
foolish  self-reliance  of  the  Hurons.  But  the  **  invulnerable  " 
chief  had  decided,  and  the  ruin  of  all  the  missions  of  the 
Northwest  was  only  a  matter  of  time. 

Their  course  lay  up  the  Richelieu  to  Lake  Champlain 
and  Lake  George  and  over  to  the  Mohawk.  As  they  hurried 
along  they  were  beaten  with  sticks  and  clubs ;  their  wounds 
were  torn  open  by  the  long  nails  of  the  Indians ;  they  were 

23 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

refused  food  and  drink,  and  at  night  were  picketed  to  the 
earth  to  prevent  their  escape. 

The  traveler  on  Lake  Champlain  to-day  is  shown  an 
island  which  the  State  has  set  aside  as  a  government  reser- 
vation. It  is  marked  Jogues  Island.  It  is  thought  to  have 
been  the  scene  of  the  occurrences  which  Jogues  describes 
at  this  stage  of  his  journey.  A  number  of  braves  on  the 
warpath  had  halted  there  awaiting  the  raiders,  and  their 
thirst  for  blood  had  to  be  satiated  by  the  usual  savage  pas- 
time of  the  gauntlet.  "  We  were  made  to  go  up  the  slope 
from  the  shore  between  two  lines  of  savages  armed  with 
clubs  and  sticks  and  knives,"  writes  Jogues.  "  I  was  the 
last,  and  blows  were  showered  on  me.  I  fell  on  the  ground 
and  I  thought  my  end  had  come,  but  they  lifted  me  up  all 
streaming  with  blood  and  carried  me  more  dead  than  alive 
to  the  platform."  The  usual  tortures  of  gashing  and 
stabbing  and  beating  and  burning  and  distending  followed. 
More  joints  of  the  martyr's  fingers  were  gnawed  or  burned 
oflf,  and  at  one  time  he  was  on  the  point  of  consecrating  that 
island  of  Lake  Champlain  by  a  horrible  death  at  the  stake. 
The  torture  was  drawing  to  an  end,  and  a  huge  savage  stood 
above  him  with  a  knife  to  slash  the  nose  from  his  face — the 
usual  prelude  of  death  by  fire.  Jogues  looked  at  him  calmly, 
and,  to  the  surprise  of  all,  the  executioner  strode  away. 
Again  the  effort  was  made  with  the  same  result.  Some 
unseen  power  averted  death  at  that  time.  His  martyrdom 
was  to  be  more  protracted,  and  at  another  place. 

From  there  they  resumed  their  journey,  stopping,  how- 
ever, to  repeat  the  sport  whenever  a  new  band  was  met 
with.  It  took  them  till  the  tenth  of  August  to  reach  the 
southern  end  of  Lake  George;  and  then  for  four  days  the 
wretched  captives  dragged  themselves  along  the  trail  which 
passes  by  what  is  now  Saratoga,  bleeding  and  famished, 
supporting  their  miserable  life  by  the  fruit  or  berries  they 
could  pluck  from  the  trees  or  the  roots  they  could  dig  up 
in  the  woods.     They  were  loaded  meantime  with  heavy 

24 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

packs,  and  beaten  when  they  faltered  or  fell  on  the  road. 
On  the  eve  of  the  Assumption,  August  14th,  1642,  they 
arrived  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Mohawk,  opposite  the  vil- 
lage of  Ossernenon,  a  Httle  above  where  the  Schoharie 
Creek  flows  into  the  river. 

A  conch-shell,  an  instrument  usually  reserved  for  re- 
ligious rites,  announced  their  coming,  and  men  and  women 
and  children  swarmed  down  to  the  river  bank  to  give  the 
victims  a  savage  welcome.  It  was  the  gauntlet  again,  and 
the  miserable  line  moved  up  the  steep  ascent;  Jogues,  as 
usual,  coming  last.  "  I  saw  Rene  in  front  of  me,"  he  after- 
wards wrote :  "  he  fell,  horribly  mangled  and  covered  with 
blood ;  not  a  spot  of  white  was  visible  as  he  was  dragged 
to  the  place  of  torture."  But  while  grieving  for  his  friend 
and  forgetting  his  own  pitiable  state,  he  himself  was  struck 
by  a  huge  ball  of  iron  in  the  middle  of  the  back,  and  fell 
gasping  on  the  pathway.  He  struggled  to  his  feet  and 
followed  the  procession  to  the  platform,  where  the  usual 
horrors  of  such  performances  were  carried  out  in  all  their 
details,  till  darkness  brought  them  to  an  end.  But  even 
then  their  sufferings  were  not  over,  for  they  were  pinioned 
to  the  earth  and  given  over  to  the  boys  of  the  camp,  who 
amused  themselves  the  greater  part  of  the  night  by  sticking 
knives  and  prongs  into  the  victims,  and  heaping  coals  and 
hot  ashes  upon  their  naked  bodies  to  see  them  writhe  in 
agony.  Jogues  narrates  that  Rene's  breast  was  a  pitiable 
sight  after  this  torture.  He  does  not  allude  to  his  own 
condition,  except  to  say  that  he  was  more  fortunate  in  being 
able  to  throw- off  the  burning  coals. 

One  incident  occurred,  on  this  first  day  at  Ossernenon, 
which  is  worthy  of  special  notice,  as  illustrating  the  wonder- 
ful self-control  of  the  great  martyr.  A  captive  Indian 
woman,  a  Christian,  and  chosen  no  doubt  for  that  reason, 
was  compelled,  under  menace  of  death,  to  saw  off  with  a 
jagged  shell  the  thumb  of  the  priest.  She  complied,  though 
horror-stricken;  and  when  it  fell  on  the  ground,  Jogues 

25 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

picked  it  up,  and,  as  he  himself  humbly  says,  "  I  presented 
it  to  Thee,  O  my  God !  in  remembrance  of  the  sacrifices 
which  for  the  last  seven  years  I  had  offered  on  the  altars  of 
Thy  Church  and  as  an  atonement  for  the  want  of  love  and 
reverence  of  which  I  have  been  guilty  in  touching  Thy 
Sacred  Body."  "  Throw  it  down,"  whispered  Couture,  at 
his  side,  "  or  they  will  make  you  eat  it."  He  cast  it  aside, 
and  possibly  some  prowling  dog  of  the  camp  devoured  it. 
It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  parallel  for  such  an  act  in  the 
annals  of  the  martyrs. 

The  next  day  the  tortures  were  repeated,  and  then  the 
neighboring  villages  of  Andagarron  and  Tionnontoguen, 
the  first  about  seven,  the  second  fifteen  miles  to  the  west, 
had  to  be  regaled  in  similar  fashion,  until  the  ferocity  of 
the  savages  was  sated. 

By  this  time  the  other  captives  were  either  killed  or  sent 
elsewhere  among  the  tribes;  Jogues  and  Goupil  alone 
remained.  It  had  been  decided  first  to  burn  them  at  the 
stake;  other  counsels,  however,  prevailed,  and  they  were 
brought  back  to  Ossernenon.  On  the  seventh  of  Septem- 
ber the  news  of  their  capture  had  reached  Fort  Orange, 
and  the  Commandant,  Arendt  van  Corlear,  in  person,  ac- 
companied by  Jean  Labatie  and  Jacob  Jansen,  came  to 
arrange  for  their  ransom.  But  the  news  had  arrived  that 
the  war  party  which  had  tortured  Jogues  on  Lake  Cham- 
plain  had  been  badly  beaten  at  the  fort  which  Montmagny 
had  hastily  thrown  up  at  the  mouth  of  the  Richelieu  after 
the  capture  of  Jogues.  Furious  with  rage  on  that  account, 
they  would  not  give  up  the  prisoners.  Once  again  there 
was  question  of  the  stake. 

Soon  afterwards,  Goupil  was  killed  for  making  the  sign 
of  the  cross  on  the  head  of  a  child.  It  occurred  when  the 
lonely  captives  were  returning  to  the  village  reciting  their 
beads.  A  savage  stole  up  behind  them  and  buried  his  toma- 
hawk in  the  skull  of  Goupil,  who  fell  on  his  face  uttering 
the  Holy  Name.    Jogues  seized  him  in  his  arms,  gave  him 

26 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

the  last  absolution,  and  then  waited  his  own  turn,  but  the 
victim  was  torn  from  his  embrace,  and  two  more  blows  by 
the  murderer  ended  the  work.  "  Thus,"  says  Jogues,  "  on 
the  twenty-ninth  of  September,  this  angel  of  innocence  and 
martyr  of  Jesus  Christ  was  immolated  in  his  thirty-fifth 
year,  for  Him  who  had  given  His  life  for  his  ransom.  He 
had  consecrated  his  heart  and  his  soul  to  God,  and  his 
work  and  his  life  to  the  welfare  of  the  poor  Indians." 

The  scene  of  this  tragedy,  as  far  as  can  be  made  out 
from  the  indications  left  by  Father  Jogues,  is  somewhere 
along  the  line  of  crosses  that  have  been  recently  erected 
at  Auriesville.  They  are  on  what  is  called  the  Hill  of 
Prayer;  that  is  to  say,  the  slope  which  the  two  captives 
were  descending  when  the  Indian  interrupted  their  recital 
of  the  beads  by  the  blow  of  his  tomahawk. 

The  next  morning  Father  Jogues  started  out  to  find  the 
corpse  of  his  friend,  but  was  prevented  from  going  on  with 
the  search.  On  the  following  morning,  however,  in  spite 
of  threats  to  kill  hiii^,  he  set  out  with  an  Algonquin  and 
discovered  the  remains  in  the  stream  at  the  foot  of  the  hill. 
The  body  had  been  given  to  the  boys  of  the  village,  who 
had  stripped  it  and  dragged  it  there  for  sport.  It  was 
already  partially  eaten  by  the  dogs.  All  that  he  could  do 
at  the  time  was  to  hide  it  deeper  in  the  stream,  intending  to 
return  later  to  give  it  burial.  Two  days  passed  and  he  was 
still  unable  to  carry  out  his  purpose.  When  he  sought  it 
again  it  was  gone.  His  description  of  this  search  reads, 
like  a  threnody: 

''  I  went  to  the  spot  where  I  had  laid  the  remains.  I 
climbed  the  hill  at  the  foot  of  which  the  torrent  runs.  I 
descended  it.  I  went  through  the  woods  on  the  other  side ; 
my  labor  was  useless.  In  spite  of  the  depth  of  the  water, 
which  came  up  to  my  waist,  for  it  had  rained  all  night,  and 
in  spite  of  the  cold,  I  sounded  with  my  feet  and  my  staff  to 
see  whether  the  current  had  not  carried  the  corpse  further 
off.  I  asked  every  Indian  I  saw  whether  he  knew  what  had 
become  of  it.     Oh !  what  sighs  I  uttered  and  what  tears  I 

27 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

shed  to  mingle  with  the  waters  of  the  torrent,  while  I 
chanted  to  Thee,  O  my  God !  the  psalms  of  Holy  Church 
in  the  Office  of  the  Dead." 

After  the  thaw  he  found  some  bones,  and  the  skull, 
which  had  been  crushed  in  several  places. 

"  I  reverently  kissed  the  hallowed  remains  and  hid  them 
in  the  earth,  that  I  may  one  day,  if  such  be  the  will  of  God, 
enrich  them  with  a  Christian  and  holy  ground.  He  deserves 
the  name  of  martyr  not  only  because  he  has  been  murdered 
by  the  enemies  of  God  and  His  Church  while  laboring  in 
ardent  charity  for  his  neighbor,  but,  more  than  all,  because 
he  was  killed  for  being  at  prayer,  and  notably  for  making 
the  sign  of  the  cross." 

The  exact  place  that  holds  the  remains  of  this  illustrious 
man  whose  brief  career  was  so  apostolic,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  romantic,  has  never  been  identified.  Perhaps  it 
may  be  God's  will  to  reveal  it  at  some  future  time,  so  that 
a  fitting  memorial  might  mark  the  spot  where  the  heart- 
broken Father  Jogues  knelt  weeping  over  the  body  of  his 
friend. 

Nowadays  the  ravine  where  this  tender  and  pathetic 
parting  of  the  friends  took  place  is  the  favorite  spot  at 
Auriesville  for  the  throngs  of  people  who  gather  there  for 
the  annual  pilgrimage.  At  the  end  of  the  day  they  wend 
their  way  in  solemn  procession  down  the  steep  incline  to 
this  wooded  hollow  through  which  rushes  the  creek  which 
once  covered  the  body  of  Goupil.  The  stream  is  boisterous 
and  full  in  the  early  spring,  but  almost  dry  in  the  heat  of 
summer.  Here  and  there  rustic  bridges  span  it.  At  one 
end  of  the  glen  a  high  wall  of  rocks,  from  which  great 
trees  protrude,  rises  sheer  above  you.  At  its  base  is  a  pulpit 
made  of  the  trunks  and  branches  of  trees.  There  the  pil- 
grims gather  for  the  concluding  ceremonies  and  to  listen 
to  the  words  of  counsel  and  exhortation,  or  the  repetition 
of  the  tragic  story  of  the  past.  The  perpendicular  cliff 
behind  sends  the  words  of  the  preacher  far  into  the  lonely 

28 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

woods  around,  which  almost  seem  to  awe  the  listening 
multitude  to  silence.  Beyond  the  creek  a  thick  cluster  of 
pines  rises  above  a  huge  boulder,  which  serves  as  an  altar, 
and  when  the  Benediction  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is 
given  there,  the  glimmer  of  the  lights  in  the  deep  shadow 
of  the  pines,  the  robes  of  the  priests,  and  the  scarlet  and 
white  of  the  acolytes,  with  the  kneeling  multitude  beyond 
the  stream  bowed  in  silent  adoration  as  the  Sacred  Host  is 
lifted  above  their  heads,  while  no  sound  is  heard  in  the 
densely  peopled  solitude  save  the  tinkling  of  the  bell  and 
the  lapping  of  the  waves  on  the  rocks,  you  have  a  picture 
that  can  never  be  effaced*  from  your  memory.  How  dif- 
ferent is  all  this  from  the  terrible  twenty-ninth  of  Septem- 
ber of  long  ago ! 

When  Goupil  was  dead  Jogues  was  alone,  and  began 
his  awful  captivity  of  more  than  a  year,  each  moment  of 
which  was  a  martyrdom.  In  the  Relation  which  his  Superiors 
commanded  him  to  write  he  has  left  us  a  partial  account 
of  the  horrors  he  endured.  Employed  in  the  filthiest  and 
most  degrading  occupations,  he  was  regarded  with  greater 
contempt  than  the  most  degraded  squaw  of  the  village. 
Heavy  burdens  were  heaped  on  his  crippled  and  mangled 
shoulders,  and  he  was  made  to  tramp  fifty,  sixty  and  some- 
times a  hundred  miles  after  his  savage  masters,  who 
delighted  to  exhibit  him  wherever  they  went.  His  naked 
feet  left  bloody  tracks  upon  the  ice  or  flints  of  the  road ; 
his  flesh  was  rotting  with  disease,  and  his  wounds  were 
gangrened ;  he-  was  often  beaten  to  the  earth  by  the  fists 
or  clubs  of  crazy  and  drunken  Indians ;  and  more  than  once 
he  saw  the  tomahawk  above  his  head  and  heard  his  death 
sentence  pronounced.  The  wretched  deerskin  they  per- 
mitted him  to  wear  was  swarming  with  vermin ;  he  was 
often  in  a  condition  of  semi-starvation  as  he  crouched  in  a 
corner  of  the  filthy  wigwam  and  saw  the  savages  gorging 
themselves  with  meat,  which  had  been  first  offered  to  the 
demons,  and  which  he  therefore  refused  to  eat,  though  his 

29 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

savage  masters  raged  against  this  implied  contempt  of  their 
gods.  According  to  General  Clark,  that  refusal  to  recognize 
the  Indian  deity  was  the  determining  cause  of  Jogues'  death. 
But  over  and  above  all  his  bodily  agony,  his  sensitive  and 
holy  soul  was  made  to  undergo  a  greater  torture  by  the 
sight  of  the  shameless  moral  turpitude  of  the  savages  and 
the  awful  spectacle  thrust  upon  him  as  they  roasted  and 
devoured  their  captives. 

Meanwhile  he  was  baptizing  what  dying  children  he 
could  discover,  and  comforting  the  Huron  captives  who 
were  brought  into  camp,  sometimes  even  at  the  risk  of  his 
life  rushing  into  the  flames  to  baptize  them  as  they  were 
burning  at  the  stake. 

The  wonder  of  it  all  is  how  human  endurance  could  be 
equal  to  such  a  strain.  Indeed  only  the  help  of  supernatural 
grace  can  explain  how  he  did  not  die  or  lose  his  mind. 
That  God  gave  him  such  assistance  there  is  no  doubt,  for 
we  find  in  the  record  he  has  left  that  he  spent  hour  after 
hour  kneeling  in  prayer  in  the  deep  snow  of  the  forest,  pro- 
tected from  the  wintry  blast  of  the  storm  only  by  a  few  pine 
branches.  The  Indians  looked  with  terror  at  the  cross 
which  he  used  to  cut  in  the  trunks  of  trees,  and  took  his 
prayers  for  incantations,  often  threatening  to  kill  him  when 
he  was  so  engaged.  We  learn  that  he  was  at  times  favored 
with  heavenly  visions  during  that  long  martyrdom.  He 
heard  the  songs  of  angels  above  the  roar  of  the  tempest ;  he 
saw  the  palisaded  town  transformed  into  a  celestial  city, 
and  beheld  the  Divine  Master  as  a  King  in  royal  robes.  Be- 
sides these  supernatural  consolations,  he  had  a  human  com- 
forter also;  a  poor  old  squaw  in  whose  cabin  he  lived  and 
whom  he  called  his  "  Aunt."  She  would  try  in  her  rude  way 
to  heal  his  wounds ;  would  weep  over  them  when  she  could 
not  succeed ;  and  invariably  warned  him  of  any  danger  that 
she  happened  to  hear  of.  We  do  not  know  if  he  converted 
the  poor  old  creature.   We  cannot  help  thinking  that  he  did. 

There  is  another  touching  incident  of  rewarded  affection 

30 


THE    DISCOVERER   OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

that  occurred  during  his  journeys.  He  once  stumbled  into  a 
miserable  cabin  where  he  found  a  dying  Indian.  "  Do  you 
not  know  me?  "  said  the  sufferer.  "  It  was  I  who  cut  you 
down  when  you  were  suspended  by  ropes  at  Ossernenon 
and  were  just  about  to  die."  God  evidently  rewarded  the 
poor  wretch  for  this  act  of  humanity.  He  received  baptism 
before  he  expired.  No  doubt  also  a  poor  squaw  whom  he 
saved  from  a  furious  torrent,  plunging  in  to  save  her  and 
her  babe  while  the  Indians  looked  on  apathetically,  must 
have  done  her  best  to  repay  him. 

Month  after  month  dragged  on,  and  repeated  efforts  were 
made  to  purchase  him  from  the  Mohawks.  Even  the  So- 
kokis  of  distant  Maine,  who  had  been  well  treated  by  the 
French,  came  to  intercede  for  him.  In  fact  he  tells  us  him- 
self that  he  might  have  escaped,  but  could  not  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  do  so  while  there  were  any  Christian  captives  to 
whom  he  might  be  of  service.  His  baptisms  that  year,  he 
informs  us,  amounted  to  seventy  altogether,  all,  of  course, 
of  persons  at  the  point  of  death.  It  is  New  York's  first 
baptismal  record.  Unfortunately  we  have  only  the  number, 
not  the  names. 


31 


CHAPTER  III 
The    Escape 

Jogues  had  been  a  captive  for  thirteen  terrible  months, 
when  an  event  occurred  which  seemed  to  announce  his 
doom.  About  a  year  after  his  arrival  on  the  Mohawk, 
namely,  on  June  30,  1643,  ^^  had  secured  a  scrap  of  paper, 
and,  with  full  knowledge  of  the  danger,  sent  a  letter  to 
Montmagny  informing  him  that  the  Mohawks  were  about 
to  make  a  raid  on  Fort  Richelieu.  A  Huron  who  had  been 
adopted  by  the  Iroquois  carried  the  missive.  The  garrison 
was  warned  in  time  and  the  Indians  were  repulsed.  They 
must  have  known  of  the  letter,  for  instead  of  fixing  it 
somewhere  on  the  trail  the  Indian  entered  the  fort  with 
it,  an  act  which  must  have  been  witnessed  by  his  asso- 
ciates. Naturally  they  attributed  the  failure  of  their  expe- 
dition to  Jogues  and  sullenly  returned  to  their  town.  It  is 
this  action  of  the  missionary  that  serves  as  the  basis  of  the 
charge  that  he  was  really  not  put  to  death  for  the  Faith, 
but  only  in  punishment  for  this  "  treachery." 

To  this  the  answer  is  plain.  In  the  first  place,  he  was 
not  put  to  death  then.  Consequently  the  feelings  of  the 
Indians,  at  that  time,  can  be  eliminated  as  the  motive  of 
an  execution  which  took  place  three  years  later,  unless  those 
same  feelings  persisted,  wholly  or  in  part ;  which  was  not 
the  case.  Secondly,  it  may  be  safely  asserted,  that  even  if 
he  had  been  put  to  death  then,  he  would  have  been  a  martyr 
of  charity.  To  deliberately  accept  death  in  order  to  save 
one's  brethren  from  being  wantonly  massacred  by  im- 
placable savages  led  by  an  apostate  Christian,  is  heroic  vir- 
tue fully  worthy  of  canonization.  Let  a  prisoner  in  the 
hands  of  a  civilized  enemy  do  something  similar  to  save  his 
countrymen  and  he  will  be  immortalized  as  the  nation's 
hero.     Thirdly,  anyone  acquainted  with  the  code  of  Indian 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

ethics  knows  that  once  wampum  belts  are  exchanged,  all 
causes  of  complaint,  past  and  present,  are  obliterated.  That 
was  their  recognized  purpose.  They  were  treaties  of  peace, 
and  an  Indian  accepting  them  would  not  remember  the  mur- 
der of  his  own  brother.  We  have  notable  examples  of 
this  in  Indian  history.  It  was  even  adopted  by  the  whites 
themselves.  Thus  Kondiaronk,  "  The  Rat,"  was  made  a 
captain  of  French  troops,  and  was  buried  with  unusual 
honors  after  having  deliberately  caused  the  most  bloody 
massacre  in  all  Canadian  history.  We  have  another  instance 
in  the  case  of  Ouraouhara,  the  Iroquois,  who  after  having 
been  sent  to  the  galleys  in  France  was  trusted  by  Denon- 
ville  as  his  special  envoy.  Hence,  when  the  presents  were 
exchanged  later  on  at  Three  Rivers,  and  Jogues  was  chosen 
as  the  ambassador  of  France,  all  past  offences,  real  or  imagi- 
nary, were  not  only  condoned  but  forgotten,  and  had  no 
influence  whatever  on  subsequent  negotiations.  Moreover, 
he  was  killed  not  by  the  Mohawks  as  such — and  they  were 
the  ones  who  had  suffered  harm — but  by  a  few  fanatics  of 
the  Bear  family,  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  the  nation;  and 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  was  a  sorcerer  who  was 
making  the  okis  and  manitous  of  the  Mohawks  powerless. 
To  die  for  that  was  to  die  for  the  Faith. 

The  Dutch  were  aware  of  his  impending  death,  and  a 
positive  order  came  from  Governor  Kieft  of  Manhattan  to 
the  commandant  at  Fort  Orange  to  secure  his  release  at  all 
risks.  Consequently,  when,  a  short  time  afterwards,  Jogues 
arrived  at  the  fort  with  his  captors,  the  commandant  in- 
sisted that  he  should  escape,  promising  that  if  he  once  got 
on  board  the  vessel  which  was  lying  in  the  river  he  would 
be  landed  safely  in  France. 

To  his  amazement  Jogues  refused.  He  could  not  desert 
his  post.  He  had  written  in  that  sense  to  his  Superior  in 
Quebec.  The  worthy  and  perhaps  wrathy  Dutchman  re-* 
monstrated  that  it  was  throwing  away  his  life  uselessly. 
The  Mohawks  would  not  talk  to  him  any  longer  about  re- 

33 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

ligious  matters,  nor  would  they  let  him  approach  the  Huron 
or  other  captives;  and  finally,  he  was  made  to  understand 
that  his  death  was  not  to  be  deferred,  but  was  to  take  place 
as  soon  as  he  got  back  to  Ossernenon.  He  listened  to  all  this 
and  then  spent  the  entire  night  in  prayer  to  consider  what 
course  was  most  in  conformity  with  the  glory  of  God  and 
the  good  of  souls.  In  the  morning  he  presented  himself  to 
the  commandant.  He  would  escape  and  return  again  when 
peace  was  restored. 

It  was  then  arranged  that  during  the  night  he  should 
steal  out  of  the  place  where  he  had  been  made  to  sleep 
among  the  Iroquois.  A  small  boat  would  be  waiting  on  the 
shore,  and  he  could  paddle  to  the  ship  whose  sailors  had 
sworn  to  defend  him.  All  seemed  easy  except  the  first  step. 
The  structure  which  the  Indians  occupied  with  their  pris- 
oner was  a  wooden  building  about  lOO  feet  long,  one  end  of 
which  was  used  as  the  house  of  a  settler  who  had  married  a 
squaw ;  the  rest  being  given  over  to  the  Indians.  Going  out 
at  nightfall  to  explore  the  ground,  the  poor  captive  was 
nearly  devoured  by  dogs,  and  was  compelled  to  beat  a  hasty 
retreat  to  the  cabin.  The  charitable  Dutchman  bandaged 
his  wounds  in  a  rough  fashion,  but  the  Indians,  suspicious 
that  something  was  going  on,  securely  barred  the  door  and 
lay  down  to  sleep  alongside  of  him.  Hour  after  hour  passed, 
and  he  heard  the  cock  crow  announcing  the  dawn.  All  hope 
was  gone,  when  suddenly  a  door  opened  at  the  other  end  of 
the  building  and  a  white  man  appeared.  Making  signs  to 
him  to  quiet  the  dogs,  Jogues  stealthily  picked  his  way  over 
the  prostrate  forms  of  the  savages — he  would  have  been 
tomahawked  if  he  awakened  them — and  succeeded  in 
getting  into  the  open.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  man  that 
before  he  began  this  race  for  life,  he  tucked  somewhere  in 
his  miserable  rags  a  wooden  cross  he  had  made,  and  two 
little  books  of  devotion  which  he  had  found  somewhere  or 
other.  There  was  a  fence  to  be  cleared.  He  clambered 
over  it,  and  then  running  as  fast  as  his  mangled  legs  would 

34 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

allow,  made  for  the  river,  reaching  it  in  an  exhausted  state; 
but  alas !  the  boat  was  high  and  dry  in  the  mud.  He  cried 
out  to  the  vessel  in  the  stream,  but  no  one  heard  him.  The 
sailors  were  asleep.  At  last  by  superhuman  efforts  he  got 
the  boat  into  the  water,  and  soon  after  he  was  climbing  up 
the  ship's  side,  a  free  man.  He  was  more  than  welcome, 
but  his  happiness  was  brief.  Furious  at  the  escape  of  their 
prisoner,  the  Mohawks  threatened  to  burn  the  settlement, 
but  the  commandant  laughed  at  them.  He  knew  perfectly 
well  they  would  not  dare  to  risk  a  war  with  the  Dutch  while 
they  were  fighting  with  the  French.  Nevertheless,  for  rea- 
sons hard  to  understand,  Jogues  was  compelled  to  go  ashore 
in  the  night,  though  the  faithful  sailors  were  loud  in  their 
condemnation  of  the  act,  and  was  hidden  in  one  of  the 
houses  while  the  Indians  were  parleyed  with,  and  finally 
induced  to  relinquish  their  claim  on  him  by  the  payment  of 
three  hundred  livres.  But  his  whereabouts  was  kept  secret 
for  fear  of  his  being  tomahawked,  and  for  six  weeks  he 
lay  in  a  garret  within  a  few  feet  of  the  Indians,  who  en- 
tered the  house  at  pleasure.  Often  the  slightest  movement 
or  a  moan  would  have  betrayed  him.  The  ship,  meantime, 
had  departed,  and  the  unhappy  prisoner  was  subjected  to  the 
most  brutal  treatment  by  the  boor  into  whose  charge  he 
had  been  given.  Thus,  for  instance,  he  was  nearly  killed  by 
lye  water  which  was  given  him  to  drink.  Had  it  not  been 
for  the  kindness  of  the  famous  minister,  Dominie  Megapo- 
lensis,  he  would  have  died  of  ill-treatment  and  starvation. 
The  Dominie  was  a  conspicuous  character  among  the 
Dutch  of  Governor  Kieft's  time.  He  was  more  than  kind 
in  this  instance,  and  an  affectionate  intimacy  sprang  up  be- 
tween him  and  Father  Jogues ;  the  priest  laboring  strenu- 
ously for  his  conversion,  and  the  Dominie  showing  him 
every  consideration.  In  fact  he  was  so  outspoken  in  praise 
of  Jogues  that  he  had  to  answer  a  charge  before  the  Classis 
of  Manhattan  of  being  a  Jesuit.     His  reply  may  be  found 

35 


ISAAC    JOGUES 

in  the  New  York  State  papers,  indignantly  repelling  the 
accusation. 

At  last  another  vessel  was  ready  to  sail,  and  Father 
Jogues  was  conducted  on  board  by  the  chief  men  of  the 
colony,  and  he  and  the  Dominie  came  down  together  to 
Manhattan  Island.  The  crew  were  jubilant.  They  all  loved 
and  admired  Jogues  and  "  half-way  down,"  he  says,  "  they 
celebrated  my  release  by  stopping  at  an  island  which  they 
called  by  my  name,  and  gave  evidence  of  their  pleasure  by 
the  discharge  of  cannon  and  the  uncorking  of  bottles."  We 
have  no  more  indication  than  that  of  what  island  it  was 
that  was  "  half-way  down  the  Hudson,"  and  that  was 
christened  in  such  a  cordial  fashion. 

Frequent  attempts  have  been  made  to  locate  this  island, 
but  so  far  no  positive  conclusion  seems  to  have  been 
reached.  Possibly  it  is  the  one  which  is  now  known  as 
Esopus  Island.  Thither  the  Jesuit  novices  from  West  Park 
used  to  go  on  holidays.  They  at  least  had  no  doubt  that 
they  stood  on  the  holy  ground  where  Father  Jogues  had 
been  a  couple  of  hundred  years  before.  It  lies  in  the  centre 
of  the  stream;  is  about  half  a  mile  long,  and  possibly  one 
hundred  feet  at  its  greatest  width.  At  its  southern  ex- 
tremity there  is  a  cove  which  affords  the  only  landing 
place  from  the  river,  the  rest  of  the  shore  being  somewhat 
steep  and  rocky  and  in  one  part,  if  you  are  a  Httle 
fanciful,  it  may  look  to  you  like  a  fortification.  Someone 
thought  that  the  northern  end  had  the  appearance  of  a 
mackerel's  tail,  and  that  may  have  suggested  the  name  of 
Fish  Island,  which  at  times  serves  to  designate  the  place. 
But  romance  has  also  been  busy  weaving  legends.  Thus 
if  you  go  over  to  the  eastern  side  you  will  find  an 
isolated  and  stunted  pine,  which  is  known  far  and  wide  as 
"  Captain  Kidd's  Tree,"  and  you  may  have  to  listen  to  all 
sorts  of  gruesome  tales  about  how  the  bold  buccaneer  buried 
his  treasures  somewhere  in  the  soil  and  left  them  to  the  care 
of  the  Prince  of  Darkness.    It  is  curious  that  Captain  Kidd 

36 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

and  Father  Jogues,  who  are  poles  away  from  each  other 
morally,  should  meet  on  this  little  green  spot  in  the  Hud- 
son. 

After  six  days  the  ship  reached  New  York,  and  the  Gov- 
ernor gave  Jogues  a  most  honorable  reception,  seating  him 
beside  the  Dominie  at  table,  providing  for  his  wants,  and 
changing  his  ragged  and  half  savage  costume  for  a  civilized 
dress.  Naturally  the  presence  of  a  priest  and  a  Jesuit  on 
Manhattan  Island,  especially  with  all  the  marks  of  his  ter- 
rible sufferings  upon  him,  caused  a  profound  sensation 
among  the  colonists.  They  crowded  around  him  to  ask 
about  his  captivity,  and  it  is  narrated  that,  on  one  occasion, 
a  young  man  fell  at  his  feet  and,  kissing  the  mangled  hands 
of  the  priest,  exclaimed  :  *'  Martyr  of  Jesus  Christ !  Martyr 
of  Jesus  Christ!"  "Are  you  a  Catholic?"  asked  Jogues. 
"  No,  I  am  a  Lutheran,  but  I  recognize  you  as  one  who  has 
suffered  for  the  Master." 

There  were  only  two  Catholics  in  New  York  at  that  time 
— one  the  Portuguese  wife  of  the  Ensign,  who,  singularly 
enough,  had  a  picture  of  St.  Aloysius  in  her  room ;  the 
other  an  Irishman  who  had  come  up  from  Maryland.  He 
gave  Father  Jogues  intelligence  about  the  Jesuits  there 
and  profited  by  the  occasion  to  perform  his  religious  duties. 

The  official  documents  of  the  State  of  New  York  have 
embodied  Jogues*  lengthy  account  of  the  colony  as  he  saw 
it  during  the  month  he  remained  with  his  Dutch  friends. 
He  happened  to  be  there  just  when  a  war  was  going  on 
with  the  neighboring  Indians,  chiefly  the  Weckquaeskeeck, 
eighty  of  whom  had  been  killed  in  one  encounter  and  six- 
teen hundred  in  another ;  but  he  merely  mentions  it  without 
going  into  details.  He  would  have  been  compelled  to  say 
harsh  things  about  the  Dutch.  About  the  material  condi- 
tion of  the  colony  he  is  more  explicit.  *'  Manhattan,"  he 
says,  "  is  seven  leagues  in  circuit,  and  on  it  is  a  fort  to  serve 
as  a  commencement  of  a  town  to  be  built  there  and  to  be 
called  New  Amsterdam."     His  practiced  eye  takes  in  the 

37 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

defects  of  the  construction,  and  no  doubt  he  compared  it 
with  the  one  he  himself  had  built  on  Lake  Huron.  "  It  is  at 
the  point  of  the  island.  It  has  four  regular  bastions,  mount- 
ed with  several  pieces  of  artillery.  All  these  bastions  and 
the  curtains  were  in  1643  only  mounds ;  most  of  them  had 
already  crumbled  away  so  that  it  was  possible  to  enter  the 
fort  on  all  sides.  There  were  no  ditches.  The  garrison  for 
that  and  another  fort  further  up  consisted  of  sixty  soldiers. 
The  colonists  were  at  that  time  beginning  to  face  the  gates 
and  bastions  with  stone.  Within  the  fort  were  a  pretty 
large  church,  the  house  of  the  Governor,  quite  neatly  built 
of  brick,  and  also  storehouses  and  barracks." 

The  Governor  told  him  that  there  were  people  on  the 
island  speaking  eighteen  different  languages.  "  No  religion 
is  practised  publicly,  but  the  Calvinist,  and  orders  are 
to  admit  none  but  Calvinists;  but  this  is  not  observed. 
There  are  in  the  colony,  besides  Calvinists,  Catholics,  Puri- 
tans, Lutherans,  Anabaptists  who  are  called  Mnistes,  etc." 
He  describes  the  character  of  the  river,  the  ships  in  the  har- 
bor, the  exposed  position  of  many  of  the  settlers,  the  method 
of  colonization,  the  climate,  etc. ;  and  then  reverts  to  what 
he  had  seen  further  up  the  river  at  Fort  Orange.  "  The  set- 
tlement of  the  Rensselaers  is  a  little  fort  built  of  logs  with 
four  or  five  pieces  of  cannon  and  as  many  swivels.  The 
colony  is  composed  of  about  one  hundred  persons  in  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  houses  which  are  built  along  the  river.  They 
are  merely  of  boards,  and  thatched  roofs,  and  with  no 
masonwork  except  the  chimneys." 

It  is  not  likely  that  Father  Jogues  left  the  narrow  pre- 
cincts of  the  colony  during  his  month's  sojourn  on  Manhat- 
tan Island,  for  naturally  he  would  not  expose  himself  to  be 
captured  by  any  prowling  Indians  who  might  have  come 
down  from  the  Mohawk  in  search  of  him.  Nor  did  the 
colony  itself  afford  much  opportunity  for  going  about.  The 
houses  were  mostly  clustered  around  Bowling  Green.  The 
market-place  was  there,  and  the  Parade  Ground,  and  "  a 

38 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

popular  store,"  as  we  are  told  in  Valentine's  "  History  of 
Broadway,"  which  forms  a  part  of  The  Manual  of  the  Com- 
mon Council  of  New  York  for  i86j.  The  residence  of  the 
Provincial  Secretary  was  close  at  hand,  but  what  interests 
us  most  is  that  at  the  corner  of  what  is  now  Morris  Street 
and  Broadway  was  the  parsonage  of  Dominie  Megapolensis. 
It  is  more  than  likely  that  Father  Jogues  lived  during  all 
the  time  he  remained  in  Manhattan  with  the  Dominie,  who 
had  always  shown  himself  such  a  devoted  friend  and  bene- 
factor. The  parsonage  was  probably  built  of  brick  as  were 
most  of  the  dwellings  in  that  quarter,  and  in  all  likeHhood 
it  was  still  standing  during  the  greater  part  of  the  succeed- 
ing century.  In  course  of  time  it  was  sold  to  a  relative  of 
Governor  Stuyvesant,  Balthazar  Bayard,  who  erected  a 
brewery  on  the  premises,  not,  however,  facing  the  Parade 
Ground,  but  down  near  the  river  front.  The  present  Morris 
Street  was  a  lane  which  led  to  it.  Bayard  died  in  1699, 
and  in  1726  his  heirs  sold  the  estate  to  Augustine  Jay,  the 
ancestor  of  the  well-known  New  York  family  of  that  name. 
The  admirers  of  Father  Jogues  may  thus  give  more  than 
usual  attention  to  that  particular  section  of    old  New  York. 

The  Dominie's  full  name  was  Johannes  Megapolensis,  Jr. 
He  had  been  a  Catholic  up  to  the  age  of  twenty-three.  He 
himself  gives  us  that  information.  He  became  a  Calvinist, 
and  was  sent  to  New  York  when  Kiliaen  van  Rensselaer 
asked  for  a  minister  to  look  after  the  spiritual  affairs  of  the 
colony.  He  was  liberally  provided  for;  was  given  a  free 
passage  and  board  on  the  ship  for  himself,  his  wife  and  four 
children.  A  parsonage  was  to  be  erected  for  him  in  the 
colony,  and  he  was  to  receive  a  salary  of  one  thousand  and 
ten  guilders  yearly,  with  an  annual  increase  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  guilders  for  three  years.  He  was  to  be  supreme 
arbiter  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  with  the  one  limitation  of 
the  Patroon  himself. 

When  he  arrived  in  the  colony  no  church  edifice  except 
what  de  Vries  calls  "  a  mean  barn  "  had  as  yet  been  erected, 

39 


ISAAC    JOGUES 

though  it  was  then  1642,  and  the  Dutch  had  been  there  since 
1614;  so  he  had  to  preach  his  first  sermon  in  a  storehouse, 
where  about  one  hundred  persons  were  assembled.  The 
church  in  the  fort  was  then  being  built.  It  was  seventy-two 
feet  long,  fifty-two  broad,  and  sixteen  feet  high  above  the 
soil.  We  find  in  a  letter  of  Kiliaen  van  Rensselaer  that  the 
people  were  in  such  a  state  that  hardly  any  semblance  of 
godliness  and  righteousness  remained.  *'  The  worst  crimes," 
says  the  Patroon,  ''  were  dishonesty,  licentiousness  and 
drunkenness."  Indeed  Bogardus,  one  of  the  predecessors  of 
Megapolensis,  frequently  denounced  the  people  of  Manhat- 
tan for  their  "  horrible  murders,  covetousness  and  other 
gross  excesses." 

The  Dominie  was  a  bitter  antagonist  of  the  Jews,  and 
sent  a  protest  to  the  Classis  at  Amsterdam  against  their 
admission  into  New  Netherlands.  His  protest  was  accom- 
panied by  a  similar  document  from  Stuyvesant,  who,  like 
the  Dominie,  was  fierce  in  his  utterances  on  the  same  topic. 
Both  documents  make  interesting  reading,  but  could,  not 
safely  be  published  at  the  present  day. 

Megapolensis  was  on  familiar  terms  not  only  with  Father 
Jogues,  but  later  on  he  kept  up  a  correspondence  both  with 
Bressani  and  Poncet,  who  also  had  been  tortured  at  Auries- 
ville.  In  1654  Father  Le  Moyne  came  down  from  the  Iro- 
quois missions  to  New  York,  "  on  the  invitation,"  says 
Megapolensis,  "  of  the  Papists  living  in  Manhattan,  and 
especially  of  some  French  privateers  who  had  arrived  in  the 
port  with  a  good  prize." 

Of  course  Le  Moyne  sought  out  the  Dominie,  but  the  re- 
port made  of  this  visit  by  the  latter  does  not  reveal  the 
same  kindly  feeling  which  his  past  relations  with  the  Jesuit 
missionaries  might  lead  one  to  expect,  although  Le  Moyne 
was  careful  to  assure  him  that  he  had  not  called  to  debate 
religion  but  only  to  chat.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Le 
Moyne  told  the  parson  all  about  the  salt  springs  and  oil 
wells  in  Onondaga,  but  Megapolensis  was  incredulous  and 

40 


PETER  STU  YVES  ANT 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

put  it  down  as  "  a  Jesuit  lie."  He  referred  the  whole  matter, 
however,  to  his  ecclesiastical  superiors  in  Holland. 

Le  Moyne  spent  eight  days  in  New  Amsterdam,  and 
began  negotiations  with  the  Government  for  a  commercial 
treaty  between  Canada  and  New  Netherlands.  He  then 
went  back  to  Fort  Orange  and  from  that  place  wrote  the 
Dominie  a  long  letter  about  the  claims  of  the  Church,  send- 
ing at  the  same  time  three  learned  dogmatical  treatises. 

Evidently  this  communication  irritated  the  Dominie. 
He  wrote  an  equally  long  reply.  The  first  ship  that  set  sail 
from  New  Amsterdam  to  Canada  carried  this  acrimonious 
rejoinder,  but  the  St.  Jean,  as  the  ship  was  called,  went  to 
pieces  on  the  rocks  of  Anticosti,  and  Le  Moyne  never  read 
the  diatribe.  Megapolensis,  however,  had  taken  care  to  send 
a  copy  of  it  to  the  Classis  of  Amsterdam,  for  he  was  anxious 
to  vindicate  himself  from  the  charge  of  being  "  a  Jesuit." 
His  kindly  attentions  to  the  missionaries  had  brought  upon 
him  that  reproach. 

The  poor  old  Dominie  had  a  sad  ending.  In  August, 
1664,  four  British  frigates,  carrying  one  hundred  and  twenty 
guns  and  five  hundred  British  regulars,  sailed  into  New 
York  harbor.  Stuyvesant  had  no  more  than  one  hundred 
and  fifty  soldiers.  The  fort  was  equipped  with  only  twenty 
guns  and  the  supply  of  ammunition  did  not  amount  to  much. 
After  considerable  maneuvering  two  of  the  frigates  sailed 
past  the  fort.  Stuyvesant  wanted  to  fight  and  the  gunners 
stood  with  lighted  matches  ready  to  fire,  but  the  colonists 
were  averse  to  a  struggle  which  they  saw  was  foredoomed 
to  failure.  The  Governor  still  hesitated  when  two  ministers 
approached  him.  One  was  Dominie  Johannes  Megapolensis 
and  the  other  was  his  son  Samuel. 

"  Of  what  avail,"  said  Johannes,  "  are  our  poor  guns 
against  the  broadside  of  more  than  sixty?  It  is  wrong  to 
shed  blood  to  no  purpose !  "  Stuyvesant  collapsed,  and  on 
September  3d  the  British  flag  was  raised  over  the  fort. 
When  the  news  of  the  surrender  reached  Holland  there 

41 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

was  a  storm  of  indignation.  Stuyvesant  and  Megapolensis 
were  forever  disgraced,  and  the  Directors  of  the  West  In- 
dian Company  issued  the  following  protest : 

"  It  is  an  act  that  can  never  be  justified  that  the  Director 
General  should  stand  looking  between  the  gabions  whilst 
two  hostile  frigates  pass  by  the  fort  and  the  mouths  of 
twenty  pieces  of  cannon,  and  give  no  order  to  prevent  it; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  lending  an  ear  to  preachers  and  other 
chicken-hearted  persons,  allow  himself  to  be  led  in  from  the 
bulwark  between  the  preachers." 

The  Dominie  wrote  a  defense  of  his  conduct,  and  at 
the  same  time  had  the  courage  to  ask  for  certain  back  pay- 
ments due  to  him  by  the  Honorable  West  Indian  Company. 
The  Honorable  Company  replied  to  his  reverence  that  until 
he  should  give  further  satisfaction  concerning  the  events 
at  the  surrender  of  New  Netherlands  to  the  English  his 
salary  would  be  withheld.  Three  years  after  that,  Mega- 
polensis complained  to  the  Classis  of  Amsterdam  as  follows : 

"  The  West  India  Company  unjustly  withheld  two  thou- 
sand florins  owing  me  for  salary  and  due  to  me  before  the 
change  of  government.  I  trust  that  God,  who  has  hitherto 
taken  care  of  me  from  my  youth,  when  I  relinquished 
Popery  and  was  thrust  out  at  once  from  my  inherited  estate, 
will  henceforth  take  care  of  me  during  the  short  remainder 
of  my  life.  I  am  now  sixty-five  years  old  and  have  been  a 
preacher  about  forty  years ;  twenty-seven  years  here  and 
the  remainder  in  North  Holland." 

The  Dutch  officials  of  New  Netherlands  wrote  in  his 
favor,  but  the  Classis  continued  to  frown  on  him.  He  was 
still  a  traitor  in  their  eyes.  He  did  not  dare  to  return  to 
Holland,  and  hence  continued  his  work  in  New  York. 
"  Many  come  to  hear  me  preach,"  he  wrote.  "  They  appa- 
rently like  the  sermons,  but  are  not  inclined  to  contribute 
to  the  support  and  salary  of  the  preacher.  They  seem  to 
desire  that  we  should  live  on  air  and  not  upon  produce." 
He  died  in  New  York  on  January   14th,   1670,  friendless, 

42 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

poor,  and  with  a  blasted  reputation.  This  was  twenty-four 
years  after  he  had  gone  up  to  the  Mohawk  to  inquire  into 
the  murder  of  his  friend,  Father  Jogues,  to  whom,  after  this 
long  digression,  we  must  now  return. 

After  a  month's  sojourn  in  Manhattan,  Father  Jogues 
went  on  board  the  wretched  little  vessel  which  the  Gov- 
ernor was  hurrying  to  get  ready  to  bring  the  news  to  the 
home  government  about  the  Indian  aggressions,  weighed 
anchor  in  the  river.  It  was  a  bark  of  some  say  fifty,  some  say 
a  hundred,  tons  burthen.  It  left  the  harbor  of  Manhattan 
on  the  5th  of  November,  so  that  in  mid-winter,  with  thin 
and  wretched  clothing  and  with  nowhere  to  rest  his  aching 
limbs  but  the  deck  on  a  coil  of  rope,  or  in  the  offensive 
hold,  the  poor  suflferer  was  tossed  on  the  waves  of  the  At- 
lantic until  the  end  of  December,  1643,  when,  after  frightful 
sufferings,  the  vessel  entered  the  harbor  of  Falmouth,  in 
Cornwall,  hotly  pursued  by  some  of  Cromwell's  ships,  for 
the  rebellion  against  Charles  I.  was  then  in  progress. 

Left  alone  on  the  ship,  he  was  robbed  at  the  pistol's  point 
of  his  poor  belongings  by  marauders  who  were  prowling 
about  the  port.  Later  on,  a  compassionate  Frenchman 
whom  he  met  on  shore  obtained  a  free  passage  for  him 
across  the  Channel,  on  a  dirty  collier — a  favor  grudgingly 
accorded — and  on  Christmas  morning,  1643,  when  the  bells 
were  ringing  for  Mass,  he  was  flung  on  the  coast  of  his 
native  country  somewhere  in  Brittany.  The  exact  place 
cannot  be  identified  from  the  indications  which  he  has  left. 
Some  poor  peasants  saw  the  ragged  and  emaciated  creature 
standing  on  the  beach  and  fancied  he  was  an  Irish  refugee 
escaping  from  the  Cromwellians.  Finding  to  their  astonish- 
ment that  he  was  a  Frenchman  and  a  priest,  they  gave  him 
some  decent  wearing  apparel  and  went  with  him  to  the 
church,  where  for  the  first  time  since  his  capture  at  Three 
Rivers  he  was  able  to  go  to  confession  and  communion. 
The  maimed  condition  of  his  hands  precluded  his  saying 
Mass. 

43 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

It  took  him  eight  days  after  that  to  reach  the  College  of 
Rennes,  helped  on  his  journey  by  some  charitable  soul  who 
took  pity  on  him.  He  arrived  there  early  in  the  morning 
of  the  Epiphany,  the  6th  of  January,  1644,  and  asked  the 
porter  to  inform  the  Rector  that  he  had  news  from  Canada. 
Hearing  the  magic  word  "  Canada,"  the  Rector,  though 
about  to  say  Mass,  laid  aside  his  vestments  and  hurried  to 
the  door.  **  Do  you  come  from  Canada?"  he  asked  of  the 
dilapidated  and  ragged  man  before  him.  "  I  do,"  was  the 
answer.  "  Do  you  know  Father  Jogues  ?  "  "  Very  well, 
indeed."  "  Is  he  alive  or  dead?  "  "  He  is  alive."  *'  Where 
is  he?  "     "I  am  he,"  was  the  reply. 

The  amazement  and  joy  of  the  household  may  be 
imagined  as  they  crowded  around  him  to  embrace  him,  to 
kiss  his  mangled  hands  and  kneel  for  his  blessing.  They 
led  him  to  the  chapel  and  intoned  the  Te  Deiim.  The  dead 
had  come  back  to  them. 

The  news  of  the  missionary's  return  rapidly  spread 
throughout  France.  Everyone  was  speaking  of  him  ;  and 
the  Queen  Regent,  Anne  of  Austria,  the  mother  of  Louis 
XIV,  intimated  her  desire  to  see  him,  but  was  compelled  to 
express  her  wish  more  than  once  before  Father  Jogues  could 
be  induced  to  be  the  subject  of  such  public  distinction. 
Who  were  present  at  the  famous  audience?  We  have  no 
details  about  it,  but  we  know  that  Conde  and  Turenne  were 
then  in  their  young  manhood ;  that  St.  Vincent  de  Paul 
was  chief  almoner  of  the  Queen,  and  that  possibly  they 
with  many  other  of  the  most  famous  personages  of  the 
realm — for  the  interest  in  him  was  universal — may  have 
been  near  the  throne  when,  humbled  and  abashed,  with  his 
hands  concealed  in  the  folds  of  his  cloak,  he  entered  the 
royal  presence.  He  replied  very  slowly  and  reluctantly  to 
the  various  inquiries  about  his  adventures  and  sufferings, 
and  when  at  last  he  was  compelled  to  throw  back  his  cloak 
and  tell  of  the  hideous  manner  in  which  his  fingers  had 
been   eaten   or   burned,   the   Queen,    descending   from   her 

44 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

throne,  took  his  hands  in  hers  and,  with  tears  streaming 
down  her  cheeks,  devoutly  kissed  the  mutilated  members 
and  exclaimed :  "  People  write  romances  for  us — but  was 
there  ever  a  romance  like  this?  and  it  is  all  true." 

Public  exhibitions  of  this  kind,  however,  were  like  Iro- 
quois torture  for  Father  Jogues.  He  became  exceedingly 
sensitive  about  it,  and  those  who  called  to  see  him  were 
warned  by  the  Superiors  not  to  refer  to  his  sufferings.  He 
even  refused  to  visit  his  own  people.  Apparently  he  did 
not  see  his  "  Honored  Mother,"  though  perhaps  she  was 
dead  then.  But  what  grieved  him  most  was  that,  on  ac- 
count of  the  condition  of  his  hands,  he  was  forever  debarred 
from  saying  Mass.  His  friends  did  not  leave  him  long  in 
that  distress,  but  sent  a  petition  to  the  Holy  Father  to  re- 
move the  canonical  impediment.  The  answer  quickly  came  : 
"  Indigmim  esset  martyrcm  Christi,  Christi  non  bibere  san- 
guinem."  "  It  would  be  wrong  to  prevent  the  martyr  of 
Christ  from  drinking  the  blood  of  Christ."  It  is  noteworthy 
that  this  quasi-canonization  was  pronounced  by  Urban  VIII, 
the  very  Pope  who  has  laid  down  such  stringent  laws  on 
the  canonization  of  saints. 

What  his  feelings  were  when  this  privilege  came  we  do 
not  know.  He  has  left  us  a  record  about  his  first  Mass  in 
Canada.  With  regard  to  this  first  Mass  on  his  return  to 
France  he  is  silent. 


45 


CHAPTER  IV 
Death 

Naturally  one  would  fancy  that  this  battered  warrior 
would  now  rest  on  the  laurels  which  he  had  so  nobly  won. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  on  board  the  first  vessel  that  left 
France  for  America  and  he  had  plenty  to  do  on  the  voyage. 
The  sea  was  tempestuous,  but  a  worse  storm  arose  among- 
the  sailors.  They  were  in  mutiny,  and  had  it  not  been  for 
Jogues'  ascendancy  over  them,  the  captain  might  have  been 
tossed  into  the  sea.  The  ship  was  thought  to  be  unsea- 
worthy,  and  the  men  insisted  on  turning  back.  Influenced, 
however,  by  the  persuasive  words  of  their  holy  passenger, 
they  abandoned  their  purpose,  and  reached  Quebec  in  June, 
1644. 

Maisonneuve  was  just  then  making  his  splendid  fight 
behind  the  stockades  of  Montreal,  and  thither  Jogues  was 
sent,  to  keep  up  the  courage  of  the  defenders  and  help  the 
sick  and  dying.  Finally  the  Indians  asked  for  a  parley,  and 
a  conference  was  called  at  Three  Rivers,  for  July  12,  to 
arrange  the  terms  of  peace. 

Among  the  Indians  and  wearing  their  dress  was  William 
Couture,  the  donne  who  had  been  captured  with  Father 
Jogues  two  years  before.  He  had  been  adopted  by  the 
tribe  and  was  now  coming  as  its  envoy.  He  never  returned, 
however,  to  his  Indian  life,  but  settled  down  in  Canada,  mar- 
ried, and  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety. 

The  Council  assembled  under  a  great  tent  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  fort.  In  the  most  prominent  place  sat  Mont- 
magny ;  before  him  in  the  centre  were  the  Iroquois  deputies, 
while  back  of  them  stood  the  Algonquins,  Montagnais,  and 
Attikamegues ;  the  Hurons  and  French  being  on  either  side. 
The  chief  orator  was  Kiotsaeton,  who  appeared  covered 
with  wampum  belts,  and  very  proud  of  his  official  position. 

46 


STATUE  OF  JOGUES  AT  DUNWOODIE 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

His  speech  was  a  notable  one,  and  those  who  wish  to  study 
Indian  eloquence  may  find  it  in  detail  in  the  Relations,  with 
comments  by  Father  Vimont,  who  calls  attention  especially 
to  the  wonderful  pantomime  of  this  American  Demosthenes. 
When  he  came  to  the  fifteenth  belt  he  walked  up  to  Mont- 
magny  and  presented  it,  saying  that  it  was  to  wipe  out  the 
memory  of  the  ill-treatment  of  Father  Jogues.  "  We 
wished,"  he  said,  with  splendid  mendacity,  not  knowing 
that  Jogues  was  listening  to  him,  "  to  bring  him  back  to 
you.  We  do  not  know  what  has  become  of  him.  Perhaps 
he  has  been  swallowed  up  by  the  waves,  or  fallen  a  victim 
to  some  cruel  enemy.  But  the  Mohawks  did  not  put  him 
to  death."  Jogues  merely  whispered  to  his  neighbor  that 
the  stake  had  been  prepared  all  the  same.  Apparently  he 
did  not  let  himself  be  known,  and  when  the  treaty  was  made 
and  the  games  and  banquets  began,  he  had  already  gone 
back  to  his  work.  He  had  seen  too  much  of  Indian  revelry 
to  be  tempted  to  stay. 

It  was  decided  in  the  Council  to  send  an  ambassador  to 
the  Mohawks  to  obtain  the  assent  of  the  tribe  to  the  conces- 
sions made  by  the  deputies.  Every  one  thought  of  Jogues. 
He  alone  knew  the  language,  and  hence  in  due  time  he  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  his  Superior  assigning  him  to  the  task. 
The  common  of  mortals  will  be  thankful  to  him  when  they 
read  in  his  letter  that  he  confessed  to  a  shudder  when  he 
learned  of  the  appointment.  Of  course  his  official  char- 
acter as  ambassador  would  protect  him.  But  he  was  also 
a  priest  and  the  Iroquois  knew  it.  In  fact,  the  Christian 
Algonquins  came  to  him  to  express  their  fear  about  his 
going,  and  advised  him  not  to  speak  of  the  Faith  in  his 
first  interview.  "  There  is  nothing,"  they  said,  "  more  re- 
pulsive at  first  than  this  doctrine,  which  seems  to  uproot 
all  that  men  hold  dear,  and  as  your  long  robe  preaches  as 
much  as  your  lips,  it  will  be  prudent  to  travel  in  a  shorter 
habit." 

This  is  the  first  example  of  the  "  clerical  garb  "  difficulty 

47 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

in  New  York.  It  is  at  the  same  time  a  very  valuable  tes- 
timony as  to  why  Jogues  was  put  to  death.  When  he  ap- 
peared as  a  layman  and  an  ambassador  he  was  treated  with 
honor,  as  we  shall  see;  when  he  went  immediately  after- 
wards with  his  cassock  and  cross  he  was  tomahawked,  and 
he  unwittingly  precipitated  the  disaster  by  not  adhering 
strictly  to  the  advice  of  the  Algonquins,  and  the  Iroquois 
saw  that  his  office  of  ambassador  had  not  really  done  away 
with  his  priestly  character.  They  discovered  that  while  on 
this  visit  at  Ossernenon  he  had  secretly  baptized  some 
dying  children  and  had  heard  the  confessions  of  the  captive 
Hurons.  Evidently  he  had  some  other  purpose  besides  that 
of  making  peace. 

It  took  some  time  before  the  embassy  started ;  for  there 
was  much  squabbling  between  the  French  and  Iroquois  as 
to  whether  the  Algonquins  were  included  in  the  treaty,  and 
for  a  moment  there  was  imminent  danger  of  all  the  negotia- 
tions coming  to  naught.  In  fact  it  was  almost  two  years 
after  the  conference,  namely,  on  May  i6,  1646,  that  Father 
Jogues,  accompanied  by  one  of  Canada's  conspicuous  col- 
onists, Jean  Bourdon,  left  Three  Rivers  with  four  Mohawk 
guides  and  two  Algonquins.  They  reached  Lake  Andiata- 
rocte,  or  what  is  now  Lake  George,  on  the  30th  of  May. 
Jogues  had  been  there  three  years  before,  but  he  could 
not  then  have  seen  its  beauty,  as  he  lay  bleeding  and 
near  to  death  in  the  bottom  of  an  Indian  canoe.  But  now, 
when  he  beheld  it  in  all  the  splendor  with  which  summer 
had  clothed  the  woods  in  which  it  is  embedded,  and  gazed 
around  at  the  countless  garden-Hke  islands  reflected  on  its 
surface,  he  gave  it  a  name;  one  that  was  suggested  by  the 
day  on  which  he  found  himself  crossing  its  beautiful  ex- 
panse. It  was  the  eve  of  Corpus  Christi,  and  for  that  reason 
he  called  it  the  Lake  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  It  kept  that 
name  for  almost  a  century  until  shortly  before  the  Revo- 
lution a  Protestant  Irishman,  Sir  William  Johnson,  to  gain 
favor  with  the  English  king,  changed  it  to  Lake  George. 

48 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

It  is  most  unlikely  that  it  will  ever  recover  the  beautiful 
designation  given  to  it  by  the  holy  missionary,  or  even  that 
Gilmary  Shea's  and  Parkman's  suggestion  of  changing 
Lake  George  to  Lake  Jogues  will  ever  be  carried  out.  But 
who  knows?  Incidentally,  the  name  is  a  chronograph,  for 
it  recalls  the  day  and  year  of  the  discovery. 

The  travellers  did  not  take  the  trail  by  Saratoga,  but 
swerved  over  towards  the  Hudson,  to  what  is  now  Beaver 
Dam,  then  a  fishing  settlement  of  the  Mohawks.  There 
Jogues  had  the  happiness  of  meeting  the  Indian  girl 
Theresa,  who  had  been  captured  at  the  same  time  as  him- 
self on  the  St.  Lawrence.  She  had  remained  as  good  and 
pious  in  her  savage  surroundings  as  she  had  been  in  the 
nunnery  at  Quebec.  Protected  by  an  uncle  for  some  time, 
she  finally  married  a  Avarrior  of  the  tribe.  Her  delight  at 
meeting  Father  Jogues  may  be  imagined,  and  he  made  haste 
to  tell  her  that  his  first  care  would  be  to  purchase  her 
freedom.  The  freedom  indeed  was  granted,  but  its  execu- 
tion was  never  carried  out;  and  we  meet  her  again  years 
afterward  in  the  Onondaga  country,  where  Father  Le 
Moyne  saw  her  and  told  his  friends  in  Quebec  of  the  won- 
derful holiness  of  her  life.  She  never  saw  her  own  country 
again. 

The  embassy  then  proceeded  down  the  Hudson,  and 
passed  through  Fort  Orange,  or  Albany,  a  familiar  place  for 
Jogues,  who  was  glad  to  see  and  thank  his  old  friends,  and 
to  reimburse  them  for  the  money  they  had  expended  on  his 
release.  On  June  5  he  reached  Ossernenon  after  a  three 
weeks'  journey  from  the  St.  Lawrence.  His  arrival  was  the 
occasion  of  surprise  and  delight  for  his  former  captors.  A 
council  was  held  on  the  loth,  in  which  he  was  the  principal 
orator.  He  assured  his  ancient  enemies  "  that  the  council 
fires  lighted  at  Three  Rivers  would  never  be  extinguished." 
"  Here,"  he  continued,  "  are  5,000  beads  of  wampum,  to 
break  the  fetters  of  the  young  Frenchmen  you  hold  as  cap- 
tives, and  5,000  more  for  Theresa,  that  both  may  be  set 
free."     All  the  arrangements  made  at  Three  Rivers  were 

49 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

acquiesced  in,  and  the  treaty  was  formally  concluded.  The 
Wolf  clan  were  particularly  attentive  to  him  and  made  him 
a  special  present,  saying :  "  You  shall  always  have  among 
us  a  mat  to  rest  upon  and  a  fire  to  warm  you,"  a  manifesta- 
tion of  friendship  which  shows  that  the  tribe  as  such  did  not 
remember  the  incident  of  Fort  Richelieu. 

There  were  several  Onondagas  present,  and  Jogues  made 
an  earnest  and  successful  effort  to  win  their  favor.  He 
offered  them  presents,  which  they  accepted,  and  he  induced 
them  to  receive  missionaries  for  their  tribe.  Of  their  own 
accord  they  indicated  the  safest  way  for  these  future 
apostles  to  travel,  viz.,  not  through  the  Mohawk  country 
but  by  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  was  this  acceptance  of  the 
belts  that  enabled  Le  Moyne  and  his  associates  later  on  to 
announce  the  gospel  among  the  Onondagas. 

On  June  i6  the  ambassadors  left  Ossernenon,  going  by 
trail  to  the  Lake  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  reaching 
Quebec  on  July  3.  Bourdon  received  valuable  land  grants 
as  his  reward  for  making  the  treaty.  Jogues  received  the 
reward  of  death,  for  he  asked  immediately  to  return  as 
missionary  to  the  Mohawks.  His  request  was  long  and 
seriously  considered,  for  the  bloodthirsty  and  unreliable 
character  of  the  Mohawks  was  a  matter  of  common  knowl- 
edge. At  last  the  petition  was  granted,  and  on  September 
27  he  left  Quebec  for  the  Iroquois  territory,  his  Superiors 
giving  it  on  that  occasion  the  name  of  "  The  Mission  of 
Martyrs  " ;  for  said  they,  "  It  is  credible  if  the  enterprise 
succeed  in  effecting  the  salvation  of  this  people,  it  will  pro- 
duce no  fruit  until  it  be  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  mar- 
tyrs." Evidently  Father  Jogues  was  convinced  of  it  also, 
for  on  bidding  farewell  to  a  friend  he  wrote  the  memorable 
words :  "  Ibo  scd  non  rediho  " — "  I  go  but  I  shall  not  return." 
The  utterance  is  remarkable  inasmuch  as  it  did  not  mean 
that  he  was  going  to  remain  among  the  Mohawks  indefi- 
nitely, for  his  instructions  were  merely  "  to  winter  "  there. 
He  did  not  even  purpose  to  say  Mass  during  this  visit,  and 
he  brought  no  vestments  with  him. 

50 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

Was  his  fate  revealed  to  him?  Did  he  foresee  what  was 
to  happen?  The  Venerable  Marie  de  I'lncarnation  declared 
that  in  her  opinion  his  words  were  a  veritable  prophecy. 
Ordinary  people  will  read  that  meaning  into  them  also. 

With  him  were  some  Huron  guides  and  a  jetme  gargon 
named  Lalande — a  donnc  like  Goupil,  who  wanted  to  die 
for  the  Faith.  Before  they  reached  Ossernenon  the  news 
came  that  the  Mohawks  had  dug  up  the  hatchet.  A  box 
which  Jogues  had  left  behind  him  had  started  the  war. 

Indeed  on  his  previous  visit  he  had  been  apprehensive 
of  such  an  eventuality,  for  he  had  shown  its  simple  con- 
tents to  the  Mohawks  before  he  left,  so  as  to  allay  their 
suspicions  which  he  perceived  were  already  aroused,  and 
hence  when  the  pestilence  broke  out,  and  the  crops  with- 
ered, the  savage  inference  was  rapid ;  viz.,  the  evil  came 
from  the  mysterious  box;  there  was  a  manitou  in  it.  They 
hastened  to  get  rid  of  it,  and  threw  it  in  the  river.  But  that 
very  delusion  of  theirs,  fatal  as  it  was,  serves  to  establish 
beyond  any  doubt  that  their  wrath  was  aroused  against 
him,  not  because  he  was  a  white  man,  or  a  Frenchman,  or 
a  friend  of  the  Hurons,  or  because  he  had  revealed  their 
plans  to  Montmagny,  but  solely  and  absolutely  because  his 
manitou  had  wrought  them  harm.  That  manitou  in  their  eyes 
was  Christianity,  which  was  displacing  their  ancestral  dei- 
ties ;  and  thus  in  the  wilds  of  America  they  did  precisely 
what  the  old  Romans  did  when  they  strove  to  crush  out  the 
Christian  "  superstition."  The  conditions  were  identical  in 
both  instances. 

As  soon  as  his  guides  were  apprised  of  what  had  hap- 
pened they  took  to  flight.  But  he  kept  on  his  way,  though 
he  might  easily  have  saved  himself  by  returning  to  Quebec. 
By  his  side  walked  the  faithful  Lalande.  Two  days  more 
would  have  brought  them  to  Ossernenon.  He  was  at  Lake 
George  when  the  Iroquois  met  him.  Approaching  them  they 
saw  the  sorcerer  Ondessonk  in  his  priestly  robe.  He  was 
no  longer  an  ambassador  but  a  missionary,  bent  on  teach- 
ing them  the  religion  which  they  not  only  hated  but  which 

51 


ISAAC   JOGUES 

they  were  convinced  had  brought  disaster  on  their  nation, 
and  they  fell  upon  him,  stripped  him  of  his  garments,  slashed 
him  with  their  knives,  and  led  him,  mangled 'and  bleeding, 
to  the  very  place  where  he  had  been  so  honored  when  in 
another  capacity  he  stood  there  the  summer  before. 

The  old  Jesuit  associates  of  Jogues  call  attention  to  a 
very  remarkable  and  almost  startling  parallel  between  this 
scene  in  the  forests  of  the  Mohawk  and  another  memorable 
one  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem.  Surrounded  by  his  enemies, 
Christ  asked:  "Why  do  you  wish  to  kill  me?"  and  they 
answered :  "  Because  you  have  a  devil."  To  which  He 
replied :  "  I  have  not  a  devil ;  but  1  honor  My  Father,  and 
you  dishonor  Him." 

Father  Jogues  could  scarcely  have  been  reflecting  upon 
the  import  of  the  words  that  rose  to  his  own  lips  when  the 
Indian  knives  were  slashing  his  body,  but  he  uttered  almost 
the  same  words  as  those  of  Our  Saviour.  "  Let  us  see," 
said  one  of  the  savages  as  he  cut  oflf  a  strip  of  the  victim's 
flesh,  "  if  this  white  flesh  is  the  flesh  of  a  manitou.''  "  No," 
he  replied,  "  I  am  a  man  like  you  all.  Why  do  you  put  me 
to  death?  I  have  come  to  your  country  to  teach  you  the 
way  to  heaven,  and  you  treat  me  like  a  wild  beast."  It  was 
merely  a  difference  of  place.  For  the  Iroquois,  Jogues  had 
a  manitou,  or  devil ;  for  the  Pharisees,  Christ  had  a  devii  also, 
and  for  that  they  put  Him  to  death.  The  servant  was  in- 
deed very  like  his  Master. 

A  council  was  held  at  Tionnontoguen  to  decide  what  was 
to  be  done,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  famous  Kiotsaeton, 
who  had  spoken  so  eloquently  and  so  mendaciously  in  the 
peace  conference  at  Three  Rivers,  was  the  priest's  chief 
defender.  Both  the  Wolf  and  the  Tortoise  family  were 
against  killing  the  victim,  as  were  most  of  the  Bears,  and 
the  official  verdict  arrived  at  was  to  spare  his  life.  But 
one  faction  of  the  Bears  clamored  for  his  blood,  and  were 
determined  to  have  it  in  spite  of  the  reasoning  and  pleading 
of  the  rest  of  the  tribe. 

It  is  comforting  to  see,  in  the  gloom  and  confusion  of 

52 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

this  last  act  of  the  tragedy,  the  sympathetic  figure  of  the 
kind  old  squaw,  Father  Jogues'  "  Aunt,"  going  around  over- 
whelmed with  grief,  and  begging  piteously  with  tears  in 
her  eyes  for  her  **  nephew's  "  life.  "  Kill  me  if  you  kill 
him,"  she  repeatedly  said  to  his  murderers.  May  we  not 
hope  that  the  faithful  old  "  aunt "  is  now  with  her 
"  nephew  "  in  heaven?  But  she  and  the  others  failed.  The 
Bears  were  bent  on  vengeance,  and  on  the  i8th  of  October 
they  invited  Jogues  to  a  feast.  What  was  to  be  done?  To 
refuse  was  to  be  killed  immediately  as  outraging  hospitality. 
The  messengers  found  him,  crouching  in  a  cabin  nursing 
his  bleeding  wounds.  He  rose  up  and  followed  them. 
Those  were  his  last  steps  on  earth.  They  approached  the 
wigwam,  but  behind  the  door  stood  an  Indian  with  a  toma- 
hawk in  his  hand,  and  as  Jogues  stooped  down  to  enter,  the 
axe  descended  with  a  crash  into  his  skull.  His  long  and 
bloody  battle  had  ended.  They  hacked  off  his  head  and 
fixed  it  on  a  stake  of  the  palisade,  and  then  flung  the 
mai.gled  body  into  the  Mohawk,  whose  stream  it  sanctified. 

*'  So  died,"  says  Ingram  Kip,  the  Protestant  bishop  of 
California,  "  one  of  that  glorious  band  that  had  shown 
greater  devotion  in  the  cause  of  Christianity  than  has  ever 
been  seen  since  the  time  of  the  Apostles ;  men  whose  lives 
and  sufferings  reveal  a  story  more  touching  and  pathetic 
than  anything  in  the  records  of  our  country,  and  whose 
names  should  ever  be  kept  in  grateful  remembrance ;  stern, 
high-wrought  men  who  might  have  stood  high  in  court  or 
camp,  and  who  could  contrast  their  desolate  state  in  the 
lowly  wigwam  with  the  refinement  and  affluence  that  waited 
on  them  in  their  earlier  years,  but  who  had  given  up  home 
and  love  of  kindred  and  the  golden  ties  of  relationship  for 
God  and  man.  Ibo  sed  non  rediho  said  Isaac  Jogues  as  he 
went  for  the  last  time  into  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk.  He 
fell  beneath  the  blow  of  the  infuriated  savage  and  his  body 
was  thrown  to  feed  the  vultures,  whose  shrieks  as  they 
flapped  their  wings  above  him  was  his  only  requiem." 

His  companion  was  killed  on  the  following  morning. 
Rumors  of  the  tragedy  gradually  reached  Quebec,  but  all 

53 


ISAAC    JOGUES 

doubt  was  dispelled  by  an  official  letter  of  Governor  Kieft, 
of  Manhattan,  dated  November,  1646,  to  Montmagny:  "I 
sent  the  minister  of  Fort  Orange  to  find  out  the  cause  of 
the  murder,  and  he  could  get  no  other  answer  than  that  the 
Father  had  left  a  devil  among  some  articles  confided  to 
their  keeping  which  had  caused  all  their  corn  or  maize  to 
be  eaten  by  worms."  This  letter  of  Governor  Kieft  is  ex- 
tremely precious,  as  there  could  be  no  more  convincing  testi- 
mony than  that  of  a  Protestant  minister  and  a  Protestant 
governor  reporting  officially  on  the  cause  of  the  crime. 
They  put  it  beyond  question  that  it  was  not  a  matter  of 
politics,  or  race  hatred,  or  of  thoughtless  savage  fury.  It 
was  the  loathing  of  what  the  Indians  conceived  to  be  Chris- 
tianity. Just  as  in  greater  persecutions,  the  pretext  was  that 
its  teachings  brought  disaster  upon  the  country. 

Independently  of  the  nature  of  his  death,  the  hoHness  of 
this  wonderful  missionary  was  of  the  most  extraordinary 
kind.  What  he  said  of  Goupil  may  be  applied  to  him.  "  He 
was  an  angel  of  purity."  His  obedience  was  heroic  and 
never  faltered  under  any  trial ;  the  extent  of  his  mortifica- 
tion is  evident  from  his  sufferings,  which  were  not  only 
accepted  but  sought ;  his  spirit  of  prayer  was  uninterrupted, 
and  of  that  higher  kind  to  which  visions  are  vouchsafed ; 
his  patience  was  boundless,  his  charity  most  tender  even  to 
the  fiercest  of  his  persecutors.  "  The  only  sin  I  can  remem- 
ber during  my  captivity,"  he  told  his  spiritual  friend  and 
guide,  Buteux,  "  was  that  I  sometimes  looked  upon  the 
approach  of  death  with  complacency  " ;  an  admission  which 
will  give  ordinary  saints  a  shiver. 

Was  his  death  a  martyrdom?  To  be  certain  about  that 
we  must  await  the  decision  of  the  Church,  but  most  people 
who  read  of  his  sufferings  will  agree  with  the  Lutheran  on 
Manhattan  Island  who  went  down  on  his  knees  and  saluted 
him  as  a  martyr ;  with  the  Queen  of  France  who  wept  over 
his  wounds,  and  with  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  himself  who 
almost  canonized  him  before  his  death.  All  of  the  Prot- 
estant historians,  some  of  them  ministers  and  bishops,  give 

54 


THE    DISCOVERER    OF    LAKE    GEORGE 

him  that  title;  Catholic  writers  have  no  doubt  about  it;  the 
Venerable  Marie  de  I'lncarnation,  who  is  so  revered  in 
Canada  for  her  sanctity,  reiterates  it  incessantly;  the  old 
missionaries  who  knew  him,  some  of  whom  were  subse- 
quently martyrs  themselves,  had  no  hesitation  in  privately 
invoking  his  intercession ;  and  the  Plenary  Councils  of  Bal- 
timore and  Quebec  have  asked  for  his  canonization.  Imme- 
diately after  his  death  a  tribunal  was  established  to  officially 
inaugurate  the  process,  and  the  original  documents  contain- 
ing the  testimony  given  on  that  occasion  have  fortunately 
come  down  to  us.  In  our  own  days  the  process  has  beep  re- 
sumed and  the  taking  of  testimony  about  the  virtues  and 
death  of  Jogues  and  the  other  martyrs  of  the  Canadian  mis- 
sions was  continued  for  more  than  a  year.  Meantime  the 
place  where  he  died  has  become  a  sanctuary.  Ossernenon 
has  become  beautiful  Auriesville,  and  every  Sunday  in 
the  summer  time  thousands  of  devout  people  journey  thither 
from  hundreds  of  miles  away  to  pray  in  the  holy  place  which 
the  great  missionary  consecrated  by  his  blood.  To  con- 
clude, it  is  abundantly  clear  that  more  than  for  any  of  the 
other  missionaries,  the  cause  of  Jogues'  death  is  freed  from 
any  possibility  of  its  having  been  associated  with  political 
or  race  feeling.  It  w^as  simply  out  of  hatred  of  the  cross,  of 
dislike  of  his  doctrinal  teachings,  and  detestation  of  the 
Christian  morality  which  he  inculcated. 

None  of  his  relics  have  been  found.  His  clothing,  his 
breviary  and  missal  were  given  to  his  friend  Dominie  Mega- 
polensis.  All  traces  of  them  have  been  lost,  but  as  the 
Dominie  died  in  New  York  it  is  just  possible  that  these 
precious  relics  may  some  day  be  discovered.  As  to  the  place 
where  the  martyrdom  occurred  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  it  is  at  what  is  known  as  Auriesville,  on  the  south 
bank  of  the  Mohawk  just  above  the  Schoharie. 


55 


A 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


API?  -  5  1956  LU 


240cfS7JN 


'si^ri)7Vli 


or 


■M- 


REC'D  LP 


^^'25  1957. 


REC'D  i.u 


NOV    4  1957 


ffov'STTM 


REC'D  LD 


tnrt 


9Q0ct'5.Vr  


REC  D  LD 


Oi;t  20  tutu 


tPM 


ZSOfffflOff 


REC'D  LD 


NOV  10  1960     , i 


tm 


irJ^ 


ycy^cw 


ltc5    18W^ 


9Jan'61lU 


LD  21-100m-2,'55 
(B139s22)476 


General  Library  i 

University  of  California        ! 

Berkeley  I" 


LD  2lA-50m-4,'60 
(A9562sl0)476B 


Unirewity  of  Calif  «wnia 
Berkeley 


